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comp.lang.ruby

Ruby and RoR book recommendations

Michael Schidlowsky

10/8/2007 7:33:00 PM

Hello all,

What books would you recommend for a course on Ruby and Ruby on Rails?
I am currently evaluating books for a course I'm teaching next
semester and am trying to get a good sample before I make any
decisions. I'd be happy to have separate books for Ruby and RoR.

Also, are there any books that you think are terrible and that we
should stay away from?

Of course reasonable people will disagree, but I'm just looking for
pointers to texts I might have overlooked, particularly advanced ones.

Thanks,
Michael
8 Answers

John Joyce

10/9/2007 1:03:00 AM

0


On Oct 8, 2007, at 2:32 PM, Michael Schidlowsky wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> What books would you recommend for a course on Ruby and Ruby on Rails?
> I am currently evaluating books for a course I'm teaching next
> semester and am trying to get a good sample before I make any
> decisions. I'd be happy to have separate books for Ruby and RoR.
>
> Also, are there any books that you think are terrible and that we
> should stay away from?
>
> Of course reasonable people will disagree, but I'm just looking for
> pointers to texts I might have overlooked, particularly advanced ones.
>
> Thanks,
> Michael
>
You can't go wrong with Beginning Ruby, and then it leads you to a
brief Rails chapter the Sitepoing publishing book on Rails.
Both make good texts, but you'll need to create your own assignments.
though, this should be easy to do with both books.

Gene Tani

10/9/2007 1:52:00 AM

0

On Oct 8, 6:02 pm, John Joyce <dangerwillrobinsondan...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> On Oct 8, 2007, at 2:32 PM, Michael Schidlowsky wrote:
>
>
>
> > Hello all,
>
> > What books would you recommend for a course on Ruby and Ruby on Rails?
> > I am currently evaluating books for a course I'm teaching next
> > semester and am trying to get a good sample before I make any
> > decisions. I'd be happy to have separate books for Ruby and RoR.
>
> > Also, are there any books that you think are terrible and that we
> > should stay away from?
>
> > Of course reasonable people will disagree, but I'm just looking for
> > pointers to texts I might have overlooked, particularly advanced ones.
>
> > Thanks,
> > Michael
>
> You can't go wrong with Beginning Ruby, and then it leads you to a
> brief Rails chapter the Sitepoing publishing book on Rails.
> Both make good texts, but you'll need to create your own assignments.
> though, this should be easy to do with both books.

I started the Apress ActiveRecord book and i read the sample chapter
on AR from Obie Fernandez' Rails Way (forthcoming). They're both
excellent.

Giles Bowkett

10/9/2007 8:46:00 PM

0

> What books would you recommend for a course on Ruby and Ruby on Rails?
> I am currently evaluating books for a course I'm teaching next
> semester and am trying to get a good sample before I make any
> decisions. I'd be happy to have separate books for Ruby and RoR.

My favorite Ruby book is still "The Ruby Way." "Ruby By Example" is
also excellent, especially if you want to cover basic functional
progrmaming. "The Rails Way" is aiming to be the dominant reference,
currently that position belongs to "Agile Web Dev w/Rails," which is
the default book. I'd say go with both there also and you can't go
wrong.

--
Giles Bowkett

Blog: http://gilesbowkett.bl...
Portfolio: http://www.gilesg...
Tumblelog: http://giles.t...

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

10/10/2007 2:41:00 AM

0

Giles Bowkett wrote:
>> What books would you recommend for a course on Ruby and Ruby on Rails?
>> I am currently evaluating books for a course I'm teaching next
>> semester and am trying to get a good sample before I make any
>> decisions. I'd be happy to have separate books for Ruby and RoR.
>
> My favorite Ruby book is still "The Ruby Way." "Ruby By Example" is
> also excellent, especially if you want to cover basic functional
> progrmaming. "The Rails Way" is aiming to be the dominant reference,
> currently that position belongs to "Agile Web Dev w/Rails," which is
> the default book. I'd say go with both there also and you can't go
> wrong.
>
The only single book I know of that *adequately* covers *both* Ruby and
Rails is David A. Black's "Ruby for Rails". Some folks think it's light
on Rails and heavy on Ruby, but I disagree.

If you're going to go with separate books, I'd stick with the Pickaxe
and AWDR. There just aren't any substitutes worth talking about.

John Joyce

10/10/2007 5:01:00 AM

0


On Oct 9, 2007, at 9:40 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

> Giles Bowkett wrote:
>>> What books would you recommend for a course on Ruby and Ruby on
>>> Rails?
>>> I am currently evaluating books for a course I'm teaching next
>>> semester and am trying to get a good sample before I make any
>>> decisions. I'd be happy to have separate books for Ruby and RoR.
>> My favorite Ruby book is still "The Ruby Way." "Ruby By Example" is
>> also excellent, especially if you want to cover basic functional
>> progrmaming. "The Rails Way" is aiming to be the dominant reference,
>> currently that position belongs to "Agile Web Dev w/Rails," which is
>> the default book. I'd say go with both there also and you can't go
>> wrong.
> The only single book I know of that *adequately* covers *both* Ruby
> and Rails is David A. Black's "Ruby for Rails". Some folks think
> it's light on Rails and heavy on Ruby, but I disagree.
>
> If you're going to go with separate books, I'd stick with the
> Pickaxe and AWDR. There just aren't any substitutes worth talking
> about.
>
Ruby for Rails is great, but it is very light on a lot of Rails
things, but that's because it's a few years old, and more
importantly, its focus is Ruby more than Rails. Actually, Ruby in the
context of Rails.
It could certainly use a sequel. Lord knows, Mr. Black could probably
write 3 sequels to that book without batting an eye.

Giles Bowkett

10/10/2007 6:35:00 AM

0

> Ruby for Rails is great, but it is very light on a lot of Rails
> things, but that's because it's a few years old, and more
> importantly, its focus is Ruby more than Rails. Actually, Ruby in the
> context of Rails.

A comprehensive course on Ruby on Rails would definitely be lacking
without the final four chapters of R4R. I'd say use "Agile Web Dev"
and "Rails Recipes" as your main Rails texts, "The Ruby Way" as your
main Ruby text, the final four chapters of "R4R" for understanding
inheritance, mixins, metaprogramming, etc., and the functional
programming chapters of "Ruby By Example" to understand map, grep,
inject, etc. And the chapters from "Prototype and Scriptaculous" on
Prototype's extensions to Object and Function.

--
Giles Bowkett

Blog: http://gilesbowkett.bl...
Portfolio: http://www.gilesg...
Tumblelog: http://giles.t...

David A. Black

10/10/2007 9:27:00 AM

0

John Joyce

10/10/2007 2:30:00 PM

0

>
> Not quite a few years old -- it was published in May, 2006 :-)
In computer years, especially Rails years, that's like 35