Rails seems like it's a great platform... just the documentation isn't
as in-depth as I would like beyond the simplest cases.... and "google"
is not necessary the best way to learn things because lots of forums
and blogs show you how to do things using earlier versions. It's not
always easy to separate what's relevant from what isn't relevant. All
of this can make a person less productive rather than more productive.
So... are there any books that really help reduce the learning curve
and gotchas with developing COMPLEX applications with Rails 3?
Some criteria:
1. I am not looking for a "how to" book. I am already 530 tests in and
understand quite a bit about rails already in the 2 weeks that I've
been using. I'm a programmer of 19 years and have been building web
apps for a long time.
2. I am not looking for a book that spends 20%-50% of its pages
explaining how to program in OO... or what an MVC architecture is...
or what an ORM is. I can actually write these libraries/frameworks if
I really had the time, so understanding is not the problem 
3. I am really more interested in a book or set of books/resources
that cover all the gotchas that you WILL come across when building
COMPLEX applications - something that is up-to-date.
4. The real problem with examples and samples online is that they are
just too simple. I always find myself I am really interested in books
that don't cover the "simple" examples, but also the "exceptions" to
the examples/scenarios that are likely most complex and highly
customized you are likely to see in a large application.
5. I am really interested in books that don't cover "how to setup
devise", but rather, that cover the most useful customizations you'd
ever want to do in Devise (just as an example... we can replace
"Devise" with 'gem XYZ' here)
Do these resources exist? Or is grueling through the learning curve
pretty much the best way to go about it?
The only reason I ask this is because I've come to the conclusion that
IF you have 2-ish months to build a large application, and IF you are
REALLY good at another platform... I am not convinced that Rails will
help in the short term giving many of its documentation problems, out-
of-date examples and general "gotchas" and "problems" that seem to
occur a lot more frequently than say in Java/Spring.
I do fully admit that once you learn all the gotchas in Rails and the
various plugins, and you know how to do "one of every complex thing"
possible, you will be MUCH faster than in Java/Spring regardless of
how good you are in Java. But that probably means you need to get 1-2
months of time under your belt using Ruby and Rails minimum.
Anyway, I've probably rambled enough. If you have any good books/
resources to help speed up my learning curve and take out a lot of
guesswork and "solving weird problems in dark" type of issues, that
would be awesome.
If you'd like to have discussion about other things, I'm always fair
game with that. LOL.
