AstonJ's comments

Hi Helen, I didn't use a template - it's just a bog standard Open Office document and exported as a PDF :)

Hi, a glossary sounds like a great idea - thanks for the suggestion!

Awesome, thanks for the comment.

That's a great idea - thanks! Will definitely check out leanpub.

Hi Helen - thank you for the feedback, you make some great points!

I definitely need to iron out who the target market is, but for the time being I have expanded the note to include "(though you are introduced to these topics later – so don't panic if you don't know what they are just yet)."

I think I had envisaged that people coming to this book would have already made their minds up about learning Rails and perhaps already looked at some of the other books but felt a bit out of their depth - so would have probably come across some of the terms. Hence I though that I'd keep the more in-depth explanations to their respective chapters. But yeah I totally see what you mean so I may have to rethink that! Thanks again for the feedback.

Hi, thank you for the feedback.

I started writing the book on the weekend, and have tried to include details about the main concept and format (it's going to be split into three books). As it's early days I've only really touched on what will actually be included, but my thoughts so far are along these lines:

An introduction to Object Oriented Programming | Ruby basics | -why ruby | -datatypes | -variables | -classes | -etc | An introduction to Rails and the MVC architecture | -why rails etc | A Ruby on Rails tutorial - building your first app! | -1 | -2 | -3 | -4 | -etc | Using Gems | Using Git | Deploying | An introduction to Test Driven Development | -------? | -------? | -------? |

Originally I sought feedback from my friends, and as that's been very positive I thought it wise to get opinions from a wider audience, such as on HN.

Thanks for the link to the Sacha Greif book - I will definitely check it out!

I started off writing in WriteRoom (I love the full screen mode) but then it started to mess up my formatting so I moved to Open Office.

Thanks for the comment and link, I'm off to read it now :)

Haha thank you! I love the name too :)

Yes it can be tough - I agonised over Python and Ruby too, there was a lot going for them both, but in the end I followed my heart as I just felt more comfortable with Ruby :)

Thanks for the comment!

I completely agree with you! I think programming has become a lot easier in recent years, with the advent of languages such as Ruby and the sheer number of well thought out learning materially, particularly centring around good programming practises. And of course thanks to frameworks like Rails that do a lot of the heavy lifting.

Thanks for the comment and support!

Hi, thanks for the comment and encouragement!

If you're looking for books on the internals of Rails, this one could be right up your street: http://patshaughnessy.net/ruby-under-a-microscope

If you're looking for more general but advanced books there are loads of fantastic ones - some of my favourites are Eloquent Ruby, Design Patterns in Ruby, Metaprogramming Ruby and there's Crafting Rails Applications for Rails (though I haven't started this myself yet - but I hear it's very good).

Thanks for your feedback.

> Is your target audience absolute beginners to programming or experienced programmers who want to learn Rails?

Definitely more the former. Although I do assume the reader is familiar with the basics of HTML and CSS given that Rails is a web framework, but neither of those should be difficult to pick up.

I like the idea of including something on 'why' Ruby and hope to tackle those when I come to the Ruby chapter - I should also touch on reasons for choosing Rails in the introduction to Rails chapters. The reason I didn't include any of that in the initial chapters is because I am assuming people have already made their mind up in giving Rails a go - but definitely see your point and maybe I could add a note to say that is covered in the later chapters?

Thanks again for your feedback - much appreciated!

One of the things I love about Rails is because it IS quick to adopt the latest (stable) Ruby, and doesn't hang around too long supporting old versions which really, not too many of us are (or should be?) using anyway. I have found the Ruby community are generally eager to use the most up to date Rubies ...some are even on Ruby 3.0 ;-)

Hi Matt, you make some interesting points. Here's what I think as a relative newcomer to both Ruby and Rails (but not to building large/busy websites).

MIGRATION/UPGRADES & STABILITY VS PLAYGROUND ZONE. I appreciate what you're saying and yes upgrading could be easier - but the benefit of the way Rails does it now, is that uptake is significantly higher, because it is practically pushed on you. I think I prefer this because it helps keep Rails cutting edge (one of the reasons I choose Rails over other frameworks). Maybe I'll change my mind once I've got a few apps that need upgrading - then again maybe not, I've always preferred redoing things from scratch than upgrading/patching things anyway (with app-powered sites such as wordpress/vbulletin - I would redo the customisations from scratch for every major upgrade - but happy to patch minor updates).

PUBLIC/PRIVATE/PLUGIN APIS. I don't really have an opinion on this.

RAILS/MERB MERGE WAS A MISTAKE. I remember when I first started researching web frameworks, the Merb and Rails split worried me - as I thought it would end up in two factions (two frameworks basically aiming for the same thing) and would split the community. So the merge did two things (for me anyway) showed me the community is united (and not affected by egos), and made me feel better about coming to Ruby (instead of going with a framework in another language).

TECHNICAL DEBTS. Again I don't really have an opinion on this being a relative newcomer - but I guess many people would disagree.

KEEP THE COST OF ENTRY LEVEL LOW. This one I think I am qualified to comment on :D I didn't choose Rails because it was 'easy' to get into (although it is, because it is written in Ruby). I choose Rails because it was the best web framework. If people want wordpress-ease, they should use wordpress - a web framework is completely different to an off-the-shelf app which is designed for one main purpose, even if with some leeway for customisation. I left off-the-shelf packages for Rails because I hated being restricted by them, and I was prepared to learn to program to use Rails. To my surprise, learning Ruby and Rails was much easier than learning say PHP and CakePHP (which I tried briefly). Also, I believe anyone serious about learning Ruby and Rails, can easily, in about 3 to 4 months by following this guide: http://astonj.com/tech/best-way-to-learn-ruby-rails/

DOCUMENTATION I have to disagree - I love the Rails Guides, I've been reading them from start to finish on my Kindle (currently half way through Digging Deeper). Of course maybe like almost anything they could be better, but I disagree that they're "far from great". Try working with a forum app where documentation is next to non-existent lol.

SUMMARY. I came to Rails because I wanted a cutting edge web framework, one that was written in a clean, modern language - and that's what will keep me here. I'm aware and happy to continue learning and keeping myself up to date to stay current. What I don't want is a framework to lag behind others - that would very quickly make me think about jumping ship... and I reckon a large majority of others think the same too.