Agile web development with rails
by Dave Thomas · first published 2006
54% recommend38% neutral7% critical
Why HN recommends it
Walks beginners through building a shopping-cart app step by step, so you learn Rails conventions by doing. Often named the standard Rails book, best paired with some Ruby basics and the latest edition.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
Related books
2008–2010The art of Rails
Edward Benson
Recommended by 4 · mentioned by 54 recommend · 5 mention4 recommend · 54 recommend
2008–2022The Rails way
Obie Fernandez
Recommended by 22 · mentioned by 3822 recommend · 38 mention22 recommend · 3822 recommend
2009–2011Simply Rails 2
Patrick Lenz
Recommended by 7 · mentioned by 87 recommend · 8 mention7 recommend · 87 recommend
2007–2020Ruby For Rails
David A. Black
Recommended by 17 · mentioned by 2117 recommend · 21 mention17 recommend · 2117 recommend
2009–2026Ruby on Rails tutorial
Michael Hartl
Recommended by 205 · mentioned by 239205 recommend · 239 mention205 recommend · 239205 recommend
2007–2012Rails recipes
Chad Fowler
Recommended by 4 · mentioned by 94 recommend · 9 mention4 recommend · 94 recommend
2008–2009Beginning Rails
Jeffrey Allan Hardy
Recommended by 2 · mentioned by 32 recommend · 3 mention2 recommend · 32 recommend
2010–2018Prefactoring
Kenneth Pugh
Recommended by 1 · mentioned by 31 recommend · 3 mention1 recommend · 31 recommend
…The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt An excellent book to build your skills and internalize the common Ruby idioms is The Ruby Way by Hal Fulton. As others have mentioned, Agile Web Development with Rails is The Book to use for learning Rails. Of the above, the only book I don't have in one form or another is Chris Pine's (because it is, frankly, well below my skill level). There's an online tutorial…
on “Ask HN: I want to learn Ruby ” ↗…- http://guides.rubyonrails.org - http://peepcode.com - http://railscasts.com - https://github.com/edgecase/ruby_koans Books: - http://www.pragprog.com/titles/rails4/agile-web-development-... : Agile Web Development with Rails - http://pragprog.com/titles/ruby3/programming-ruby-1-9 : Programming Ruby 1.9 (Pickaxe book) - http://www.amazon.com/Rails-Way-Addison-Wesley-Professional-... : The Rails 3 Way
on “Learning Ruby and Rails, where would you start?” ↗…Michael Hartl: The most comprehensive of the resources listed so far. Again, I took my time working through this one, and it really paid off. http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial-book Agile Web Development With Rails: But I’ve only just order it! This is the resource everyone seems to recommend. It’s also the only one I’ve had to spend money on so far. Not finished it yet, but so far so good. http://www.amazon.ca/Agile-Web-Development-Rails-Ruby/dp/193...
on “RoR” ↗…need more. You really probably should learn the basics of programming Ruby before diving into Rails, but, if learning the basics is demotivating and you need a deep dive, I'd recommend you get the book Agile Web Development with Rails [1], which is a pretty good dive into rails that covers a lot more than any web tutorial will. [1] http://pragprog.com/book/rails4/agile-web-development-with-r...
on “Ask HN: How persistent and smart do you have to be to learn to program?” ↗…everything to work cross-platform was almost as much trouble as just installing things natively. That's why I ended up going with the cloud IDE. By the way, I recommend reading the Rails Tutorial before Agile Web Development with Rails, which makes a good follow-on (as indicated at https://www.railstutorial.org/book/following_users#sec-guide...). But of course go with whatever works best for you.
on “Launch of the 3rd Edition of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial Book” ↗…toolkit is to build something using it. That's particularly true in the case of RoR, since it's very geared towards fast prototyping. If you don't know Ruby, get the pickaxe book. I'd also recommend Agile Web Development with Rails: http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Ruby-Pragmatic-Programmers... http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Web-Development-Rails-2nd/dp/097... Also check out PeepCode; it gets rave reviews: http://peepcode.com/
on “Ask YC: Going to RailsConf 2008. How do I learn RoR by then?” ↗…independent". Helpful to understand the idea. And the authors are respected and well known in the community of agile developers. If you work with RoR (which is popular choice nowadays) you may find "Agile Web Development with Rails" by Dave Thomas and David Hansson interesting, but it does not cover "agile methodology" itself too wide. But it does give a good overview of practical usage. Anyhow, personally I still prefer to learn…
on “Ask YC: Good agile book?” ↗http://railstutorial.org is the best Rails 3 intro book I've found. The HTML version is free or you can buy the print edition + screencasts. Agile Web Development With Rails by Sam Ruby et al. is also good.
on “Ask HN: Rails 3 book recommendations?” ↗I would suggest you start with the core book: --Agile Web Development with Rails (Fourth Edition) --Rails Tutorial w. Rails 3 is very good. --Beginning Rails 3 by Carneiro and Barazi is excellent --The Rails 3 Way by Fernandez is difficult if not expanding --Service-Oriented Design…
on “Ask HN: Rails 3 book recommendations?” ↗* The Pragmatic Programmer (Read this once every 6 months until it's obvious) * Head first design patterns * Agile Web Development with Rails It's not obvious, but the rails book is a great introduction to test-driven development in general.
on “Ask HN: Books for soon to be Software Engineers” ↗I'm assuming your brand new to Rails so I would definitely check out "Agile Web Development with Rails 4" (https://pragprog.com/book/rails4/agile-web-development-with-...). It was written by DHH, Sam Ruby, and Dave Thomas. I started reading through this after I did the online tutorial and I have not been…
on “Good book on Ruby on Rails?” ↗I've been using Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial and Agile Web Development with Rails 5 by Sam Ruby. I had much less experience with Rails 3 than you so you might find it redundant but those have been the two best for me.
on “Choosing Ruby on Rails for web development project in 2019” ↗Agile web development with rails by Sam Ruby is a great intro to Ruby and rails. The Ruby on rails channel on YouTube has a playlist explaining all the new components of rails 8 called rails 8 unpacked. Things like solid queue/cache…
on “Ask HN: What's the best way to start with Ruby on rails?” ↗…explore the RoR community, I can't help but be amazed at how rich and active it is. For learning rails there are 3 very high quality books that talk about the latest version (Rails Way, Rails Tutorial, Agile Web Development with Rails). Compare this to the books available Django, none of which discuss the latest edition and many of which are outdated(e.g. Django book v2 (the latest ed.) covers Django 1.0!). This doesn't touch on the…
on “Ask HN: Where is the Django community?” ↗…Ruby for Rails, but I'm sure O'Reilly has some fine books too. Now you're ready to start learning Rails. The online documentation is usually poorly organized -- at best. If you can afford it, pick up Agile Web Development with Rails. It's in its second edition now, and is much much better at introducing you to rails than any online resource I've seen. Maybe someone else here can recommend an online tutorial I haven't seen, but they…
on “How did you learn RoR?” ↗