

Ask HN: Where is the best place to learn Ruby? - GoofyGewber

I've been trying to lean Ruby, and I can't find any good tutorials. Anyone have any (Free?) tutorials they recommend?
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fananta
Did you mean Ruby itself? or RoR? For the latter, the Michael Hartl Ruby on
Rails Tutorial is pretty good:
<http://ruby.railstutorial.org/chapters/beginning>

~~~
GoofyGewber
Well, you're suppose to learn Ruby before Ruby on Rails right? Thanks for the
link, I'll check it out.

~~~
zampano
Honestly, if you're planning on focusing on Rails eventually, I'd start with
the Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl (<http://ruby.railstutorial.org>). It's
easy to get lost as a total beginner with all the various things Ruby itself
is capable of, when you might have better results focusing on a smaller subset
of the whole, at least to start. Rails tutorial also has a chapter early on
(one of the first five) that contains an intro to ruby and can point you in
the right direction from there.

Book-wise, you can't go wrong with The Well-Grounded Rubyist
([http://www.amazon.com/The-Well-Grounded-Rubyist-David-
Black/...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Well-Grounded-Rubyist-David-
Black/dp/1933988657)) to begin with. I found it a lot more approachable than
the Pickaxe book early on.

Good luck, Ruby was my first language and I learned a lot about learning
programming languages from that experience.

~~~
GoofyGewber
Thanks so much!

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sparknlaunch12
Stackoverflow is a great resource. The link below is has details on Rails
(maybe not best starting point for Ruby) but helpful site to learn and find
good resources.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/55574/learning-ruby-on-
ra...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/55574/learning-ruby-on-rails)

------
damian2000
Highly recommend this free 5 week Coursera course out of UC Berkeley. All
development is in Ruby and Rails. There is some introductory Ruby material -
you don't need to have any prior knowledge. It started last week, but you can
join late without a problem.

<https://www.coursera.org/course/saas>

Oh yeah the optional textbook that goes with it is available on kindle for
$10.

~~~
GoingKerouac
I enrolled today.

I wonder what the intentions of these universities are by offering these
courses for free. (seriously) hm...

It might just be me being a pessimist, but they have to have some kind of evil
motive, right? It seems unheard of that any university offers something for
free.

Found this article about Coursera...
[http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/18/net-us-usa-
college...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/18/net-us-usa-college-
online-idUSBRE83H0PC20120418)

I guess I'll just enjoy it while it lasts.

For the OP I'd suggest why's guide [http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-
guide/book/chapter-1.htm...](http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-
guide/book/chapter-1.html)

------
Sodaware
If you're wanting to learn Ruby on Rails, I highly recommend
<http://railscasts.com/>

~~~
GoofyGewber
Thank you!

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camwiese
Boom. All you need right here : [http://mattangriffel.com/post/15243700892/on-
learning-to-cod...](http://mattangriffel.com/post/15243700892/on-learning-to-
code-pt-3-resources-to-teach-you)

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gr2020
Here's a post from a while back on this subject -
[http://www.rassoc.com/gregr/weblog/2011/05/16/learning-
ruby-...](http://www.rassoc.com/gregr/weblog/2011/05/16/learning-ruby-and-
rails/)

~~~
GoofyGewber
Thank you!

------
benblodgett
Personally, I learned Ruby with Rails - this is a pretty good resource -
<http://railsforzombies.com/>

~~~
GoofyGewber
I was watching this, but to me it was so boring. It seemed helpful, so I guess
I'll have to suffer through it.

------
zoenos
<http://tryruby.org>

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voxx
The Pickaxe. Google it.

~~~
GoofyGewber
Thanks!

