John Desu

I have gone through all of my Ruby on Rails resources and have come up with a list of what I think are the best resources to get you started with your Ruby on Rails journey. This will be the first of a few lists about Ruby on Rails I will be posting over the next week or two. Following the getting started list will be a list on intermediate resources, advanced resources, and finally a list of some commonly plugins and blogs that I really think will help boost your understanding of Ruby on Rails. So with that, let’s get started!

Free Resources

1. First you’ll probably want to get Ruby on Rails installed on your machine. To do this is quite simple and this website will help you along the way. If you are on a relatively new mac, you probably already have Rails installed and therefore just running the command ‘gem install rails’ from the terminal will get you the newest version of rails and all of it’s dependencies. More on this on the official Ruby on Rails website.
2. Rolling With Ruby on Rails Part 1 and Part 2 – This is a slightly outdated tutorial as it was written in 2005, but it still serves as a great introduction to the language of ruby and the framework rails provides. 
3. Really Getting Started with Rails – Amy Hoy over at Slash7 has put together a great guide that not only covers the the basics of RoR, but also introduces the reader to the basic concepts of the Ruby scripting language.
4. Getting Started With Ruby on Rails – The excellent A List Apart wrote an article not very long ago that shows the benefits of using RoR for a web project. It introduces the reader to the basics of ruby and many concepts of the rails MVC framework.
5. Using Ruby on Rails for Web Development on Mac OSX – Apple has written an article on getting started using ruby on rails with a fresh install of Mac OS X. It is a great tutorial that takes you through the creation of a basic RoR web application.
6. Ruby on Rails from Scratch – Probably my favorite of all the free tutorials I have listed. This is a four part series of very visual tutorials for learning RoR. I know most people are visual learners, so this series is great for you. In fact, parts of the series are video tutorials. Definitely worth checking out.
7. Rails Framework Documentation – This is the Rails API. Get familiar with it because it will become extremely useful the more you learn to love it.

So I would consider those the best of the best free tutorials available. But free tutorials will only get you so far. The following is a list of paid resources that I would definitely consider checking out.

Paid Resources

1. Peepcode – Definitely my favorite, favorite resource for learning the workings of Ruby on Rails. They cover many advanced topics but also basic topics as well. I would definitely check out Rails 2 from Scratch Part 1 and Part 2 if you are just getting started with Rails. Each screencast is $9, but money can be saved if you buy credit packs or a yearly subscription. It is also worth checking out some of the PDFs they have about Rails 2 and Git.
2. Agile Web Development With Rails – This is an amazing book published by the Pragmatic Programmers (well it actually hasn’t been published yet) that can be purchased as a beta pdf. What is a beta pdf you might ask? A beta pdf is a digital copy of the book that is being updated as the book is being corrected and added to (as rails changes). Each time they release a new version of the book, you can download it again and have the newest content available. Basically, the first half of the book takes you through the creation of a complete rails application and the second half is a very deep look into the rails API with examples and explanations galore.
3. The Rails Way – Another great book that teaches you tons of great things on Rails 2. For me it is second only to Agile Web Development With Rails.

Alright, I hope that gets you started with Ruby on Rails. I will be posting another list of Rails resources and tips later this week that will give you an idea of how to make the leap from novice to intermediate Rails programmer.