I’ve just started to learn Ruby properly now, I’ve always known how to make little adjustments but if I wanted to start a new project, i’d have no idea where to start. I grab “Agile Web Development with Rails” (and a tall drink, after all it’s not going to take me a short time to learn a new language, not even one as ‘easy’ as Ruby). A couple of nights later, a couple of hundred pages later, a mildly sleep deprived reader and I start to journey onto creating my first project of my own. Seems easy at first but then I go to start on my first milestone and I realise while I’d understood all the code that I was taught, it didn’t teach me how to make my own.
The book in general is an OK reference guide and it does help with learning Ruby. I find it fast tracks you through the applications so that in no time you’ve created an application, using this WOW! factor to pull you in further. It doesn’t go through the functions that it tells you to use enough, if sometimes at all. I did catch myself thinking “I guess the documentation on why I am using this function is explained later?’.
If I were to suggest to someone on how to learn the language, I would suggest ‘net tutorials and the Rails wiki.
