Sunday, June 20, 2010

Ruby and Rails Summer Reading

If you ask a Ruby programmer why he is using Ruby, you will probably get several answers like: It is dynamic. I allows me too keep my code DRY. I get results faster. Aside from all these statements, there is one statement that almost always comes up.

I use Ruby because it makes me happy!

If you search Amazon for Ruby you get 8,829 Results and if you search for Rails you get 14,113 Results. What books should you get?

Here are the books I recommend:

Ruby

Beginning Ruby is a superb book for people coming new to Ruby.

If you are not a complete novice, you should instead go for The Well Grounded Rybyist.

When you have finished the Well Grounded Rubyist, you are ready for Metaprogramming Ruby where you learn metaprogramming techniques to help you keep your code DRY and readable.

Rails

Since Rails is currently being updated to version 3, there are not that many books available. I can recommend The Rails3 Way, currently only available as a Rough-Cut.

The lack of updated books is not a problem. The The Ruby on Rails Guides are excellent. Make sure you select the edge version.

Even more information is available through the videos from Railsconf, subscribe to them in iTunes. The first videos where published, the day after they were filmed. Fantastic!

Have a happy Ruby-red summer.

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