I was a hard core .Net developer till Nov 2007 until Syed asked to join ScrumPad team in Code71. I got curious. I started to dig about Ruby on Rails. I visited some of the popular websites written in RoR. Read some tutorials, skimmed through a few books here and there. Within a very short period of time, my initial curiosity turned out to be passion. I have been working in this framework since then and never regretted joining ScrumPad team.
Today, if someone does a simple Google search for Ruby on Rails he gets over 30 million results. Thousands of web applications are written in rails. More and more people are trying to learn RoR. Many books are written and many are on the process of writing.
Here are some popular books of ‘Ruby on Rails’ those I came across and recommend you to give a try:
1. Agile Web Development with Rails
David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of the Rails framework, along with his Rails team came up with Jolt-award winning guide “Agile Web Development with Rails” in 2006 to take advantage of all the new Rails 1.2 features. Recently fourth edition of the book released which has covered all new features of Rails 3. This book introduced a web-based application development with shopping cart that enables developers to create full-featured, sophisticated web-based applications using less code and less effort.
2. Head First Rails: A Learner’s Companion to Ruby on Rails
Head First Rails takes programming and productivity to the max. One will learn everything from the fundamentals of Rails scaffolding to building customized interactive web apps using Rails’ rich set of tools and the MVC framework. Like other Head First Series, it is written in such a way that you will get lots of fun while learning. Author Mr. David Griffiths, currently an agile coach with Exoftware in the UK, started programming at age the age of 12 and devoted his experience while writing this one.
3. Ruby on Rails 3 Tutorial: Learn Rails by Example
This book guides you through the development of your own complete sample application using the latest techniques in Rails web development. Author Michael Hartl explains how each new technique solves a real-world problem. And he demonstrates this with bite-sized code that’s simple enough to understand, yet novel enough to be useful.
4. The Ruby Programming Language
Author David Flanagan begins with a quick-start tutorial to the language also includes a long and thorough introduction to the rich API of the Ruby platform, demonstrating — with heavily-commented example code — Ruby’s facilities for text processing, numeric manipulation, collections, input/output, networking, and concurrency.
5. Ruby Cookbook
The Ruby Cookbook is the most comprehensive problem-solving guide to today’s hottest programming language written by. Lucas Carlson, a professional Ruby programmer who specializes in Rails web development. From data structures and algorithms, to integration with cutting-edge technologies, the Ruby Cookbook has something for every programmer.
6. Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional
Beginning Ruby provides the excellent introduction to Ruby, including the addition of the Merb framework and a chapter on GUI development so developers can take advantage of these new trends. Peter Cooper has been a Ruby and Rails developer since 2004, and runs the most popular Ruby and Rails weblog Ruby Inside.
7. Programming Ruby 1.9: The Pragmatic Programmers’ Guide
This Book is a reference manual for Ruby written by Dave Thoma. It includes a description of all the standard library modules, a complete reference to all built-in classes and modules. It also contains all the new and changed syntax and semantics introduced since Ruby 1.8. Learn about the new parameter passing rules, local variable scoping in blocks, fibers, multinationalization, and the new block declaration syntax, among other exciting new features.
8. Rails Recipes : Rails 3 Edition
Rails Recipes by Chard Fowler has explained all latest features of Rails 3 and distinctive solution of possible problems. Moreover, roughly half of the book is stocked with new eye-opening solutions of extend Rails, test and deploy sites. Chard Fowler has spiced up with shorter Snacks, easily digestible tricks of the trade to read.
If you do not know Ruby on Rails, this is the time to learn it.
If you already know it, enhance your knowledge.
Reading some of the books above will definitely be helpful. It will help you to write beautiful code, spur productivity, and dare I say, make you happy :).
Contributor: Fuad Bin Omar, COO, Nascenia
