Breaking this thread out because the last one was somewhat emotionally charged.
Some points:
- Please do not confuse language documentation with framework documentation. To say that PHP documentation is better that Rails documentation is comparing apples to oranges - Please do not assume that Rails documentation should encompass all of Ruby and all of Rails. When you are looking for information on topics like instance_variable_get or instance_variable_set, consider that it might be Ruby and not Rails that defines the function
Some recommendations:
- Find blogs by people you respect on various subjects and bookmark them - Find resources for overall API documentation and bookmark them - Find a list of cheat sheets and bookmark them - Read the Rails mailing list and a clear picture will begin to emerge - Please do not assume that some collection of documents will provide a set of magic recipes whereby you can instantly be an expert Rails developer. You'll need to work on a complete skill set from OS and server configuration to Ruby to Rails - Take advantage of the great books out there. No, they're not silver bullets, but they collect a great deal of wisdom into a relatively small number of pages. And... by all means, get the PDF versions when available so you can quickly find any specific item
I think it's a safe statement that nobody who posts on this list was born an expert at developing Rails applications. Over the months and/or years (for the Rails graybeards), people have acquired these skills. It's also a safe statement that no matter how good documentation is, there will be holes in it somewhere. The question is how big are the holes and what are you willing to do about it?
Here are a few resources I rely on:
The Wiki: http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails Gotapi for general API info: http://gotapi.com/ Rails Manual for more up-to-date info than Gotapi: http://railsmanual.org/ Rubydoc for Ruby questions: http://www.ruby-doc.org/ Pickaxe for more Ruby: http://whytheluckystiff.net/ruby/pickaxe/ Why's Poignant Guide for more Ruby: http://poignantguide.net/ruby/ Rails Weenie for cool q&a and tips: http://rails.techno-weenie.net/ Rails Forum for good give and take discussion: http://railsforum.com/ BDD Documentation: http://rspec.rubyforge.org/documentation/index.html Luke Redpath for great writing about BDD (also look at : http://www.lukeredpath.co.uk/2006/8/29/developing-a-rails-model-using-bdd-and-rspec-part-1 Dave Astels for BDD philosophy and fundamentals: http://blog.daveastels.com/