

Ask HN: I want to learn to program (in Ruby). How can I get to "doing", easily? - nerf

I want to learn to program (in Ruby). But with near-unlimited information, resources, etc., I've found it pretty overwhelming/difficult to find a good place to start.<p>To get started, I'd rather do than read. I'd rather someone tell me, in as much detail as possible: "do this this and this to get your environment up and running." (I'm on OSX 10.5.)<p>Then, I'd prefer if someone would just give me a bunch of "cool code" (meaning code with practical applications -- i.e. something i can use/experience right away, perhaps a very simple blog) to write and run (with specific directions as to how to do both), so that I'm able to experience it first hand.<p>And then I'd like the concepts to be explained to me (e.g. what variables, strings, classes, instances, objects, etc., are), after I've experienced/interacted with/done it.<p>I guess I wish learning to code was like learning to throw a frisbee, or ride a bike.<p>Perhaps it is, but that hasn't been my experience...<p>I'd happily (and eagerly) pay someone to make the initial process and core concepts of learning to code (mainly for web-development) a much more user-friendly experience...
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anthonycerra
For a while I used the freely available HTML book at Railstutorial.org, but I
recently bought the screencast + pdf bundle. The quality of the material is
top notch.

Paying for stuff will make you feel guilty if you don't use it. As a bonus,
you get to support the people that make great stuff.

Some other sites to check out are: www.railscasts.com (Free) www.pragprog.com
(not free) www.peepcode.com (the rails screencasts here were 'meh' and not
free)

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joshbert
You have to check this place out. It has been incredibly useful for a lot of
people, myself included:

<http://railsforzombies.org/>

Good luck!

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runjake
I'm actually glad to see this question come up again & again, because the Ruby
world is so fast-paced.

I found the following useful:

\- tryruby.org (actually _why's precursor)

\- Hartl's railstutorial.org

\- Pragmatic Programmers Programming Ruby book

\- Peepcode.com videos (great for getting started very quickly on CRUD apps

I saw that nobody's mentioned the previous HN Asks about learning Ruby, so
I've compiled some of them here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1623619>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1984323>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1544100>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=841951>

You can find more at:

[http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+l...](http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+learn+ruby)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1676271>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1877668>

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alanl
For rails check out Michael Hartls tutorials by example railstutorial.org, it
contains an ebook and videos. Only took me a couple of weeks to get through it
and I can highly recommend it. I think it costs about $100.

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spooneybarger
How about hackety-hack.com?

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maguay
Nice, I didn't realize it had a Windows version too. Thanks!

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nerf
I just came across <http://tryruby.org> and it seems pretty useful.

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dougireton
Try <http://rubykoans.com/> or for Rails, try Railstutorial.org

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sleight42
I've mentored several people who have wanted to learn Ruby. I universally
start them with installing RVM (<http://rvm.beginrescueend.com>) and then the
Ruby Koans.

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niketdesai
I just completed the ruby koans (as dougireton has suggested) and it was a
great introductory course. I highly recommend that as a start. It's quite
basic but you get a good grasp of key topics.

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dnautics
it would probably help a huge deal if you set yourself concrete goals. I was a
perler and I learned ruby because I needed to process and chunk huge amounts
of genomic data for my new job (yes I realize there are python tools to do
this but being a perler ruby seemed like a better choice) so I wound up using
it as an excuse to write all new scripts to do those jobs. In the process I
learned ruby.

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davepm
lynda.com is pretty good.

some ppl rate the "pickaxe" book (google it)

other than that, read code, try stuff, experiment.

