

Michael Hartl announces the Rails Tutorial Vanguard  - rjett
http://www.railstutorial.org/vanguard

======
acangiano
For those who are not familiar with it, this is a well-known approach among
affiliate marketers.

1) Give away something really valuable. Make people trust you and love you for
it.

2) Build a large list of email subscribers.

3) Offer a premium course for a very large amount of money ($495 in this
case). A small percentage will inevitably buy it, leading to large profits.

~~~
mhartl
The strategy you outline seems to have a bad reputation in Hacker News
circles, though I'm not sure why; as long as the product in Step 1 is valuable
by itself, the strategy certainly isn't a bait-and-switch. In any case, that's
not what the Rails Tutorial Vanguard is about. I'm trying to keep the Vanguard
small (say 5–10 people), and several slots have already been filled at an
earlier price, so the Vanguard is not designed primarily as a money-making
operation. (I've spent the equivalent of six months full-time on the book, so
even a $5000 return would be a pittance compared to the opportunity cost.)
Instead, the relatively high price is a way of attracting Vanguard members who
place a high value on small-group and individual mentoring. People who don't
find such attention valuable should wait for the release of the ( _much_
cheaper) screencast series itself.

~~~
acangiano
Sorry, I think my comment came across the wrong way. I wasn't criticizing your
approach, but rather advocating that it's an effective and well-tested method
to earn, potentially, good money. As long as the product is solid, like it is
in your case, I really don't see an issue with what you are doing.

~~~
mhartl
OK, thanks for clarifying. :-)

------
rjett
One question for Michael or any other rails developers out there:
railstutorial.org teaches rails using Rails 2.3.x, but it looks like at least
the first batch of screencasts you're putting out will be about Rails 3. How
much of what I just learned by going through Rails Tutorial is going to be
obsolete in Rails 3 and if I have already started to develop an app using the
techniques discussed in the tutorial, should I stop while I'm not far in and
start over with Rails 3 or should I keep on with 2.3.6 and try to transition
everything further down the road?

~~~
aarongough
From what I've seen most of the basic knowledge involved in creating a Rails
2.X app translates well for Rails 3. The basic application structure and the
way of thinking about the layout of the application remains largely unchanged.

Some highlight differences difference being:

    
    
      # ActiveRecord query syntax
      2.X: User.all(:conditions => {:name => "aaron"}, :limit => 1)
      3.X: User.where(:name => "aaron").limit(1)
      
      # ActionMailer API now closely matches the ActionController API
      2.X: 
        class Notifier
          def user_notification(user)
            recipients  user.email
            subject     "test subject"
            from        "system@test.com"
            body        :user => user
          end
        end
        
      3.X:
        class Notifier
          default :from => "system@test.com"
          
          def user_notification(user)
            @user = user
          end
        end   
        

In Rails 3 Gem dependencies are managed using Bundler, which means that you
have to explicitly declare all of the gems your application uses, even
fundamental things like Rails and Rack. Calls to config.gem need to be
removed, and added to a Gemfile instead.

There are quite a few more API changes than what I have listed here, routes in
particular will change greatly for complex applications. The full details are
here: <http://guides.rails.info/3_0_release_notes.html>

------
grandalf
Wow. That's a lot to pay upfront for an unknown product.

~~~
fdschoeneman
I think Michael offers a 60-day no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee,
though you should verify that first.

~~~
mhartl
That's right. Seriously, if anyone who joins the Vanguard isn't ecstatic about
the experience, I don't want to keep their money.

------
tamarindo
$495 for Rails screencasts?

Last time I checked Railscasts.com was still free and better than any other
screencasts I've ever seen, free or paid.

~~~
mhartl
$495 isn't for the screencasts; the Vanguard is a _de facto_ training course,
and those usually run $500 per person per day. Every Vanguard member will get
lots of individual mentoring and attention; people who don't find that
valuable shouldn't sign up. (N.B. Ryan Bates doesn't provide one-on-one or
small-group mentoring for Railscasts viewers.)

The Vanguard is a group to help _make_ the screencasts; the screencast product
itself will probably be over 10 hours and cost around $50, which I think is
pretty cheap. And it will be designed to _complement_ things like the
Railscasts and PeepCode, which tend to cover intermediate and advanced topics;
the Rails Tutorial screencasts are designed for beginners who aren't yet ready
for that material.

