Re:What is the best RoR book for beginners? Best online reso...
by jamongkad on Thursday April 19, 2007 @02:18PM
(#14701)
I second the thought on getting Agile Web Development with Rails. Best damn book I've ever bought concerning Rails. It is true that there is code specific for Rails(which kinda peeves me from my comfortable Ruby shell) but I highly recommend you learn Ruby first just to get the feel of programming in it. I must say coming from Java(ugh) programming is Ruby is such a pleasure. As long as you can think idiomatically then you're pretty much set!
Obviously Agile Web Development with Rails is the bible of RoR books: http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/rails2/
I'd personally be wary of many of the RoR tutorials you'll find online: none of the ones I used did a good job of explaining rails at the conceptual level: you'll end up with a rails app from the tutorial, but limited understanding of what you did and why.
Updated:
This page has a good selection of relevant books: http://www.sapphiresteel.com/Ruby-and-Rails-Books-the-essential
My opinion is that one should begin with a Rails-specific book or tutorial and not feel the need to learn Ruby first. Much of rails code is specific to rails and, while you'll want to master Ruby eventually, you'll get enough from the Rails books.