Newbies Introduction to Ruby on Rails

Originally posted on my personal blog http://haidrali.com/newbies-introduction-to-ruby-on-rails

Note: This tutorial is intended to newbies only who want to kick-start web development with Ruby on Rails. I will just share links to different resources and give tips based on my experience which may help you starting development with Ruby on Rails.

Installation and Prerequisites

Just like any other framework ruby on rails framework has its own development environment, before diving into installations of environment I would recommend if you have planned to use Window operating system for ruby on rails development please read Rails Development on Windows. Seriously and switch to linux/unix based operating system. If you still insist to carry on with Windows go ahead with my Best wishes.

You can find complete installation guide of Ruby on Rails on GoRails website (there are other websites too). I will recommend installing RVM instead of rbenv and installing it from source. GoRails guides also include installing Git, MySQL/Postgres complete the installation process. You might get errors while installation please do check your OS and version before starting installation process.

Ruby Language

Once you have set up your installations and environment start with ruby language basics I would recommend The Little Book of Ruby by Huw Collingbourne. Don’t memorise anything just practice basic syntax, data structures, condition statements, loops modules and Classes. Since we have already installed ruby as well as created a project of rails (in above GoRails guide) your can either go to project root and open a console or write your program in a .rb file and run it with ruby keyword as mentioned in book.

Ruby on Rails Framework

You are familiar with Ruby language basics now it is time to start getting your hands on Ruby on Rails. You will find numerous tutorial on getting started with Rails, but RUBY ON RAILS TUTORIAL by Michael Hartl is the most comprehensive guide for newbies. It covers details at granular level starting from Zero to Deployment it includes everything. There are other good resources as well like RailsCasts, DriftingRuby, RailsTutorial, but if you are newbie I would highly recommend finishing Ruby on Rails Tutorial book by Micheal Hartl thoroughly first and then look elsewhere like RailsCasts (very good for topic specific tutorials) as it will make your Rails framework understanding in-depth.

Development Environment

Development environment contains your machine, tools, settings, configurations etc. Make your development environment as smooth as possible use .bashrc, tumx, terminal settings aliases to amplify your concentration. Have strong grip over terminal commands. Choose any suitable text editor I personally use Sublime Text in development and vim or emacs in production mode. Look at StackOverFlow’s survey for Most Popular Developer Environments by Occupation.

Be Open Source

Ruby on Rails is an open source framework and it has very large open source community, as a beginner you will get lots of help from open source community in term of different gems, git, gist, stack overflow etc. Don’t forget to contribute back once you have a good grip.

Follow Tech Talks

Ruby and Ruby on Rails framework has large community of developers across the world. There are many conferences being held across the world on Ruby language and Ruby on Rails framework both. RubyConf and RailsConf are two of the most popular conferences in Ruby on Rails world. Do follow tech talks in these conferences particularly from speakers David Heinemeier, Sean Griffin, Mike Perham, Aaron Patterson and people who are at the forefront of Ruby language and Ruby on Rails framework development. Look at 11 TOP INTERNATIONAL RUBY ON RAILS CONFERENCES AND EVENTS 2017. Also one particularly article I really like every Rails developer to read is The Rails Doctrine by DHH.

Never Stop Learning

Once you have develop basics of ruby on rails I would recommend having some DevOps and Front end frameworks like ReactJS, VueJS skills as well. Do explore topics like High Availability, Consistency, Scaling RDBS, NoSQL etc and regularly read engineering blogs of tech giants like Google, Twitter, Microsoft and Amazon etc.

If you are newbie to Ruby on Rails development and want any suggestions or help do ping me on twitter @alihaider907.

Happy Learning 😛

Comments

[David Joseph Guzsik]

Coming from a PHP background I find it hard to get used to all the implied stuff that Ruby and Rails make use of, e.g. function returning the last value, or controllers just loading a view automagically based on file names & directory structure. I expect everything to be defined somewhere and not having those explicit definitions be visible in the code makes learning really difficult.

[Haider Ali]

Yes, I do agree with you on rails having implied stuff if you read Rails Doctrine by its creator its one of the POWER of Ruby on Rails framework once you will understand it you will see how beneficiary it is

[Henry Brown]

This beginner’s guide to Ruby on Rails covers installation and key resources. It recommends using Linux/Unix, with GoRails for installation and RVM over rbenv. For Ruby basics, "The Little Book of Ruby" is suggested, with practice emphasized. Michael Hartl's "Ruby on Rails Tutorial" is the best resource for Rails, with RailsCasts for specific topics. Optimize your development environment with tools like .bashrc, tmux, and editors like Sublime Text. Engage with the open-source community, follow tech talks, and keep learning, including DevOps and front-end frameworks. Additionally, exploring Go (Golang) can be beneficial as it is known for its performance and simplicity in building scalable applications. For further help, contact the author on Twitter.

[Albert]

Ruby is undoubtedly one of my most favourable language. It's a language for that has friendly syntaxes, easy to read, write and understand. I use rails for almost all my projects.