Re: [MLUG] what's a good Ruby on Rails book?

["Jonathan King" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On 2/28/07, Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Feb 2007, Vern Green wrote:
>
> >> http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Ruby-Rails-Wrox-Guides/dp/0470069155/
> >
> > For me, I find that publisher does not print material in a format that I
> > like, So I tend to not get a lot from those books. I have read enough
> > technical manuals and books to know publishers that I consistently find
> > have valuable information for me to use. This is personal preference
> > though, and in the case of technical books is really about the only
> > thing that counts. Most material presented in a book of this fashion is
> > the same no matter who the author is.
>
> So here are two questions:  (1) What are the good Ruby on Rails (RoR)
> books for programmers doing professional RoR programming?  (2) What is a
> good book for someone like me who won't do much hands-on RoR work but
> wants a fuller understanding of what the system is like?

I haven't done any RoR programming (yet) although I do know Ruby. I
have one of the books you list out of the library:

> I have the impression that people are liking these:
http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Development-Rails-Pragmatic-Programmers/dp/0977616630/

The Pragmatic Programmers is "the publisher that Ruby built", kind of
like O'Reilly was the house that Perl built. This book might be a very
good pick for somebody who wants to understand the whole system, since
it explains that part well and walks through the development of an
example (not so toyish) application. I am going to mess with that
soon, but I haven't yet, which is the reason I qualify my
recommendation.

I don't know about the other books, but that doesn't mean much. One of
them looks like it's by Manning, which is generally a good sign.

For Ruby development more generally, the Dave Thomas book is excellent
and essentially mandatory:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0974514055/ref=pd_cp_b_title/104-7493106-5524708

Hal Fulton now has a second edition of "The Ruby Way" out; I have the
first edition, and it's decent, but not a must-have. I'm told the
second edition is better, but I haven't seen it.

The best O'Reilly take on Ruby so far that I am aware of is the
excellent Ruby Cookbook:

http://www.amazon.com/Cookbook-Cookbooks-OReilly-Lucas-Carlson/dp/0596523696

That has some Rails stuff in it, too, but only a taste. I am not
certain you could completely learn Ruby from this book, but you almost
could, and it really is a very nice cookbook with excellent
explanations of the "recipes" themselves.

So, in a nutshell, I would get:
1) The Dave Thomas Ruby book (second edition!)
2) The O'Reilly Ruby Cookbook
3) Quite possibly the Agile Programming with Ruby book (take a look at
a bookstore)

And I would take a look at other Pragmatic Programmers' texts on rails as well.

Things to avoid at the moment include:

O'Reilly's Ruby in a Nutshell (out of date, not a strong effort
despite the author)
Most "me too" books on Ruby from non-geek-o-centric publishers
Any book that doesn't know Ruby 1.8 exists yet.

Hope this helps.

jking

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