

Rails for Zombies - Learn Rails from the comfort of your browser - trevorturk
http://railsforzombies.org/

======
trevorturk
This is a wonderful idea. Every time I try to get someone started with Rails,
I sent them to the Rails Guides and warn them that "getting Rails up and
running in the hardest part." Being able to have someone jump straight into
videos and interactive prompts from their browser is going to be so much
better...

~~~
jules
Rails is very easy to set up. Easier than any other software for programmers
I've used.

1\. Install Ruby with your package manager or with the installer for Windows
(that's just download, next next next, done).

2\. In your terminal: `gem install rails`

~~~
dangrossman
You had a good experience. Lots of people don't. Getting the environment set
up took me hours, and I'm a programmer. First I installed Ruby with my
distro's package manager. Then I followed the instructions in the book and
installed gem from the RubyGems website. Uhoh, not supposed to do that
anymore, Ruby comes with a different version of gem. The new Rails website
tells me I need a different version of Ruby, the one my distro installed
doesn't work with Rails 3. Remove Ruby, try to remove the rubygems-I-
shouldn't-install-myself, start over. Install the latest Ruby, then rails from
the gem. Try to install some gems I will need, they won't compile. Ruby was
compiled without support for some library. Go find, compile and install that
library, then recompile Ruby with that feature (after researching how to
compile specific libraries into it), and retry installing the gem. OK, on to
the next gem, which needs another missing library. How did Ruby even compile
if all these necessary libraries weren't there? Continue like this for hours
until I finally have Rails and the few gems I'll need working and can see the
default page on a web server.

Simply following your two step instructions on any of my servers would not
create a working RoR setup.

~~~
willcannings
That's really a comment about your distro, not about Ruby or Rails. It
/should/ be as simple as installing Ruby, then `gem install rails`. If it's
not then something is broken with your distro's package.

~~~
wdewind
mac osx, same amount of bullshit. its great when it works, sometimes it just
doesnt and you have to do random shit to make it work.

~~~
incomethax
Rails has been bundled with the developer tools for MacOSX since 10.5 - I
admit that it was a bit annoying if you were compiling Ruby yourself in days
prior.

~~~
wdewind
Right - my issue was with the MySQL gem. The entire system is great because
you can type

"gem install mysql" or whatever and it just works.

But the issue comes in when it doesn't work, which it didn't for me. It took
hours of debugging. MAMP gets me up and running in < 5 minutes. A proper LAMP
setup takes me < 10 minutes. I'm failing to see the advantage of Rails (at
least from a setup standpoint) when it works perfectly most of the time, but
fails so hard.

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peteysd
Wow. Just wow. This is incredibly well done. The videos (well, the ones I've
been through so far) are informative and entertaining, and the site is well
thought-out.

I think that if you can re-skin this and retool it for other themes/languages,
you've got an excellent educational tool on your hands.

Good job!

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bphogan
Love it, but I can't shake the feeling that the people who I want to show this
to would not dig the zombies vibe. Maybe I just hang around too many people
who do Real Serious Business (TM) programming. :)

It's neat as hell though.

~~~
tibbon
And some people don't enjoy the CHUNKY BACON(!!!) vibe either, but it didn't
stop _why from being awesome.

~~~
Deadsunrise
at least the chunky bacon vibe was original and creative. Now there's fucking
zombies everywhere.

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Adam503
We're getting really, really close to the "one zombie thing too many"
threshold as a culture.

But this is pretty sweet :)

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catshirt
The whole package here is a great idea, but the "labs" have insane potential.

I would jump on the opportunity to build labs for other languages if they
offered an sdk of some sort.

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patrickk
Kinda makes you wonder why all your development can't be 100% web-based. No
messy installs, version control built in (autosave like gmail?)...if your
deployed app is web-based, why not your entire development environment?

~~~
ryanhuff
Didn't Heroku have something like this a while back?

~~~
steveklabnik
It was their original product, yes.

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LiveTheDream
This reminds me a bit of Heroku's initial offering, which was an online IDE
combined with the insta-deployment.

~~~
jonpaul
Does Heroku not have the IDE anymore?

~~~
LiveTheDream
Correct. herokugarden.com redircts to heroku.com now.

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evanrmurphy
Just when I was thinking that there couldn't be an easier introduction than
railstutorial.org + heroku.com.

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mrchess
Good idea to simplify things but just side-stepping around the issue and
delaying the reality that it really isn't this easy. You're eventually going
to have to get dirty if you really want to do anything -- configure ruby,
install gems, learn git, deal with gem versions... ah, good times.

~~~
rapind
By then you're hooked and more willing to invest the time.

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judofyr
Oops: <http://d.pr/Chjg> (I'm working with EnvyLabs right now to fix the
hole).

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danishkhan
Man, I thought ruby koans and hacketyhack were amazing interactive tools. This
is amazing and a lot of fun too.

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reedlaw
While I love the concept and polish on this and would love to be able to
recommend something like this to friends, I'm sorry but I have no room in my
heart for zombies.

~~~
patrickaljord
My heart pumps blood.

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onlythestrong
Can somebody explain on how insecure code is detected? I tried system('ls')
and received: #<InsecureCode: Bad Code Zombie>

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jhubert
This is pretty fantastic. I travel around to universities with the Yahoo!
HackU program and have had a heck of a time teaching students ruby and the
rails framework from scratch. This is going to make it SOO much easier. :D

As far as the labs thing goes, this feels like the future of interactive
learning.

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thenayr
Isn't a huge part of learning a new language being able to install and
configure it in the first place?

Also the went WAYYYYYYY overboard with the whole zombies thing. We get it,
zombies are trendy these days, please just keep them away from anything
learning based.

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sudonim
Glancing at Why's poignant guide is probably a good step too.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whys_(poignant)_Guide_to_Ruby>

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mcantor

      If you've never touched the Ruby Language before, we
      recommend playing through TryRuby.org first.
    

_Recommend_?!

This is why we can't have nice things.

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obiefernandez
This feels like an important development for Windows users that want to try
Rails. (Assuming it works on IE)

~~~
patrickaljord
The editor is skywriter which is based on canvas, so it doesn't work on IE<9

<https://mozillalabs.com/skywriter/>

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danielhodgins
This is one of the most enjoyable ways to learn Ruby/Rails I have found so
far. Great idea!

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JoelMcCracken
This is really similar to something I have been working on. Awesome.

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abrudtkuhl
Was looking for something just like this last night. Awesome.

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prafulla
Just finished the 5-lab course. Amazing stuff.

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tectonic
Why do I have to signup first?

