Ruby For Rails
by David A. Black · first published 2006
81% recommend10% neutral10% critical
Why HN recommends it
Teaches Ruby fundamentals in the context of Rails, so the framework's magic makes sense; suits newcomers to Ruby or Rails devs wanting to read Rails source, with a chapter on digging into Rails core code.
Common criticism: Dated, written for Rails 2-era
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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…the view, and why we bother to separate them. Then learn Ruby. There are a bunch of resources for this. Why's Poignant Guide is hilarious, but rather opaque. I recommend a book by David Black called 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…
on “How did you learn RoR?” ↗"Ruby for Rails" by David A. Black is a good choice if you're new to Ruby as well as Rails. It spends a lot of time on Ruby fundamentals and only brings in the Rails stuff after having explained the necessary bits of…
on “What is the best RoR book for beginners? Best online resources?” ↗…recommend Sitepoint's Build Your Own Ruby on Rails book -- http://www.sitepoint.com/books/rails1/ Rails Way is great to fill out your Rails understanding from there, and then I recommend David Black's Ruby for Rails to fill out your Ruby understanding -- it will allow you to do so much more.
on “Great RoR Books?” ↗Ruby for Rails is a good one too. I haven't read it though. http://www.amazon.com/Ruby-Rails-Techniques-Developers/dp/1932394699
on “What is the best RoR book for beginners? Best online resources?” ↗Wow! Great design, nice clean look to it. congratulations on your first rails app. To add to mechanical_fish's comment, David Black's "Ruby for rails" is a good book. Another good book which I have not read, but have heard great things of, is Peter Cooper's book. Again, congratulations! Great work... Along a similar note, I wish I could work along…
on “Ask YC: I built this to learn Rails in 2 days. What do you think?” ↗…Sites with Rails", and although its a decent book, the author tends to skip some of the most important details, leaving you wondering how something came about. I would not recommend it. I have read 'Ruby for Rails', and its definitely a good book. David Black is a very good author and teaches you Ruby and shows you how a lot of the 'black-magic' in Rails happens. Here is someone else's review of some of the books…
on “2 Questions about RoR” ↗…(http://www.amazon.com/Ruby-Programming-Language-David-Flanag...) is a pretty good intro. David Black's The Well-Grounded Rubyist (http://www.amazon.com/Well-Grounded-Rubyist-David-Black/dp/1...) is recent, and I'm sure a great book, as his previous (Ruby for Rails) was excellent.
on “Ask HN: Introduction to Ruby/Rails book(s)?” ↗Its strange. Everyone seems to rave about poignant guide but I just couldn't get into it. For me Ruby for Rails by David A Black was an absolute revelation, really made things click for me.
on “Ask HN: What are you reading right now?” ↗Ruby for Rails by David A. Black. The publisher is Manning, from which I'm currently reading another book (iPhone and iPad in Action) and it's pretty awesome too.
on “Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?” ↗If you're just starting out with Ruby I strongly recommend the book "Ruby for Rails" by David A. Black. It teaches you Ruby and shows you how Rubyisms work with Rails.
on “Ask HN: learning Ruby/Rails” ↗…integers, floats, and arrays, it's always good to read about them in the context of a new language you're learning. The Well Grounded Rubyist is riddled with useful tidbits. The predecessor to that book was Ruby for Rails (also by David Black). Each time I read the book, I picked up new information, even the third time around. When we learn, we learn by applying new material to what we already know. Hence foundations…
on “Is learning a framework harder than to learn programming?” ↗I learned RoR from the wonderful Agile Web Development with Rails (2nd edition). David Black’s “Ruby for Rails” and a little later “Eloquent Ruby” helped me to better grasp the difference between Ruby the language and Rails the framework. I was a kid, and read the first two books 14 years ago. One on a holiday…
on “Ruby on Rails in a week” ↗His previous book Ruby for Rails is just as good an introduction to Ruby.
on “New to Ruby? Tips for the new Rubyist.” ↗Get The Rails Way back. it's a far better book than Agile Web Development with Rails. Also, get a good Ruby book like "Ruby For Rails" from Manning.
on “Ask YC: Going to RailsConf 2008. How do I learn RoR by then?” ↗The Rails Way, by Obie Fernandez. Only RoR book you'll ever need. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321445619/ This book is one of the three in plus's comment; another one his comment mentions is "Ruby for Rails", which will get you up to speed on Ruby as a language. It's a great book; get it too.
on “Great RoR Books?” ↗