Hello all, I have a question for all of you RoR vets.
I'm front-end developer, very familiar with XHTML, CSS, JavaScript (and a little PHP/MySQL) who is looking to get started with RoR. This is where my dilemma arises.
I bought the first edition of sitepoint's RoR book a while ago, and I am ashamed to admit that I never had a free chance to get through any meaty part of it. Clients can be demanding and suck up all my time! So I am wondering if I would be better off picking up a new book that covers Rails 2 or could I still learn a lot from the book I already have. I have no problem getting a newer copy of this book (or a different book, if anyone can recommend one), but I hate that the copy I have would go to waste.
For my two pennies worth, the main thing to learn from your first book is how Rails works - The way models, controllers and views work together to produce individual web pages. Gain familiarity about the file/folder structures. Learn how Rails interacts with databases. Get used to the convention over configuration. And also get to grips with the underlying language: Ruby (an easy thing to do!).
All of this is the same with both Rails 1.x and Rails 2.x. There are a few areas from 1 that don't work in 2 : for example pagination has changed a lot. But otherwise most of what you learn with 1 you can use in a 2 environment. And you can add some the stuff that 2 introduces at a later date: Rest for example.
So no doubt you'll want to get a book aimed at Rails 2 at some time, but things haven't changed so much that what you first learn from a Rails 1 book will be a waste of time. Further, I'd say that a well written Rails 1 book would be more useful to you than a poorly written Rails 2 book.
Thanks for the response! Its good to know that I won't be too out of date with this first book. I actually got a little impatient and read through a bit of it last night. The intro to Ruby is nice, and it looks like a fun language to play with.
So I guess I'll keep plugging away at this book as it seems very well written and easy to understand (at least the parts I read). I'll definitely supplement this reading with newer books after this one though as I gain an understanding.
Simply Rails 2 a sitepoint book has been very helpful for me. Along with this Agiles ruby on rails book is currently being updated for rails 2 and is in beta but you can buy the pdf which has mainly been updated.
Both very valuable sources in learning RoR
learning rails advice
Bookmarks