Beginning Ruby
by Peter Cooper
56% recommend44% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Well-written, fairly exhaustive tutorial that teaches Ruby through many small example scripts; suited to newcomers, including those heading to Rails, before moving on to books like Eloquent Ruby.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A guide to Ruby programming covers such topics as numbers and expressions, source code files, documentation, code execution, Rails applications, FTP, and networking.
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…Freenode. The community is awesome and really helpful. - the Sinatra video from Peepcode is really good - for books, I would recommend "Cloning Internet Applications with Ruby" (ISBN 978-1849511063), "Beginning Ruby from Novice to Professional, 2nd Ed" (ISBN 978-1430223634) and of course the current version of the Pickaxe book (google it :) - check out thechangelog.com regularly if you don't already That's about…
on “Learning Ruby and Rails, where would you start?” ↗…gives you a new toy. I wouldn't say it was worth it. But that depends on what your goals are. Ruby is a nice language though. I do all my non-web stuff in that. I highly recommend Peter Cooper's Book: Beginning Ruby, Link:http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Ruby-Novice-Professional/dp/..., if you'd like to get started with it.
on “Ask HN: Rails or Django?” ↗…resources: 1) The only website I found that actually visualized how everything sits together: http://techiferous.com/2010/07/roadmap-for-learning-rails/ 2) I persevered with a Ruby programming book: Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional (by Peter Cooper) 3) Spent a few days on a zero install Ruby tutorial: http://tryruby.org I plan to write some blog posts on the journey however may wait until I get passed…
on “New to Ruby? Tips for the new Rubyist.” ↗…it is no longer magical. After that, add some javascript/jQuery to your rails apps. Once you feel comfortable with that move onto a frontend framework like Backbone or Angular. http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Ruby-Novice-Professional-Exp... this is a good book for the Ruby path. http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ This is the go-to rails tutorial. But beware that he doesn't explain things in super fine detail, so if…
on “Ask HN: What laptop should I buy for programming and path to take?” ↗I used three books in this order Agile web development with Rails (for learning rails initially) Beginning Ruby by Peter Cooper (for learning ruby) Rails Recipes (for doing useful stuff) While reading these I also worked on converting an existing web app into rails.
on “How did you learn RoR?” ↗1) Beginning Ruby by Peter Cooper is a good one for learning Ruby, the Pickaxe book is a great reference for Ruby as well. Agile Web development with Rails is good, also the Rails Way is good for Rails 2.0.
on “2 Questions about RoR” ↗I would start with these books: http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Ruby-Novice-Professional/dp/... http://pragprog.com/titles/rails3/agile-web-development-with... With your deadlines, you're going to have to skip over some CS basics just to get everything going. That's…
on “Ask HN: Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline.” ↗…you familiar with programming concepts. (I worked halfway through this book before I realized I understood most all of it) http://www.amazon.com/Learn-Program-Second-Facets-Ruby/dp/19... Next I feel Beginning Ruby is a good place to get in depth with Ruby (I'm still getting into this book) http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Ruby-Novice-Professional-Sec... Last is Simply Rails 2 which is one big long Rails tutorial…
on “Ask HN: Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline.” ↗For tutorial/walkthrough with lots of example small scripts Beginning Ruby, 2nd ed by Peter Cooper. For a straight reference The Ruby Programming Language by David Flanagan and Yukihiro Matsumoto. A middle-ground (tutorial first half; reference second half): Programming Ruby…
on “Modern Ruby Development” ↗If you're finding the programming challenging, I recommend Beginning Ruby by Peter Cooper.
on “Ruby on Rails Tutorial, 2nd edition” ↗I believe I started with Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional by Peter Cooper. I liked The Well Grounded Rubyist and I've heard Eloquent Ruby is also good. Design Patterns in Ruby is less about ruby and more about design patterns, but…
on “Lambda School wants to teach nursing” ↗Beginning Ruby From Novice To Professional by Peter Cooper
on “What did you use to teach yourself Ruby?” ↗…to second this. "Ruby for Rails", I feel, is a great resource for learning not only the Ruby language, but how to program with it. It really did not need the Rails section. I've only flipped through "Beginning Ruby" (apress), but that looks like a good Ruby book too.
on “What is the best RoR book for beginners? Best online resources?” ↗I would recommend Peter Coopers "Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional" book. Its well written and pretty exhaustive. Another book, once you get past Peters would be Flanagan and Matz (the creator of Ruby) "The Ruby Programming Language". Good…
on “Ruby java python or lisp” ↗There are quite a few choices. You won't go wrong with any of these from amazon. (URLS provided by amazon, not a spam or affiliate link) Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional (Beginning from Novice to Professional) (Paperback) http://amzn.com/1590597664 Simply Rails 2 by Patrick Lenz Permalink: http://amzn.com/0980455200 Head First Rails: A learner's…
on “Ask HN: What books helped you learn Rails?” ↗