Optimize programmer happiness with Ruby
Learn Enough Ruby Application Development 02
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Your programming journey starts
With the Ruby Tutorial
Tutorial
02
in the
Application Development
Series
With the foundations laid by the previous Learn Enough tutorials, you’re now ready to learn how to develop larger software systems, including dynamic web applications. You’ll start by learning either Python or Ruby (or both), using them for general-purpose programming and to make a simple web application. With Python, you’ll also learn key Python tools for the fast-growing field of data science. Learning Ruby, meanwhile, leads naturally into the Ruby on Rails Tutorial, the leading introduction to web development with Rails. In a final optional tutorial, you’ll learn how to use Action Cable to make real-time web apps that respond instantly to user input. By the time you finish these courses, you'll be ready to start work as a freelancer, get a job as a developer, or start a web-based company of your own.
An elegant choice
Programming doesn't need to be painful
Ruby is an elegant object-oriented programming language with applications ranging from shell scripting and package management to full-stack web application development. Learn Enough Ruby to Be Dangerous is designed to get you started writing practical and modern Ruby programs as fast as possible, with a focus on the real tools used every day by software developers.
Learn Enough Ruby to Be Dangerous broadly follows the structure of Learn Enough JavaScript to Be Dangerous, which can be studied either before or after this tutorial. Because many of the examples are the same, the tutorials reinforce each other nicely—there are few things more instructive in computer programming than seeing the same basic problems solved in two different languages.
To be productive with Ruby, you don’t have to know everything about it—you just have to learn enough to be dangerous.
Ruby basics
The simple beauty of Ruby
Learn Enough Ruby to Be Dangerous gets off to a quick start by deploying a simple but real dynamic site to the live Web. You’ll also learn how to use Ruby to write a simple shell script and to execute Ruby interactively using a Read-Eval-Print loop (REPL). En route, you’ll discover that you already own the best interactive system for learning Ruby—a computer!
Common data structures
How to manage and handle data
Next, you’ll take a tour of common data structures in Ruby, including Strings, Arrays, and other native objects like Hashes and Regular Expressions. These structures form the essential building blocks for longer programs.
Functions, objects, and classes
Perform actions in an efficient way
You’ll then learn about functions, objects, and classes. This section of the tutorial includes the rarely taught but elegant and hugely valuable set of techniques called functional programming—the same kind of programming used by Google to process data from the Web. You’ll also learn about the important practice of test-driven development en route to writing and publishing a simple Ruby library (or “gem”).
Shell scripting and Sinatra
Put the power of Ruby into action
The final chapters of Learn Enough Ruby to Be Dangerous cover full-strength shell scripting and introduce Sinatra, a simple and easy-to-learn web framework. You’ll end by using Sinatra to make and deploy a working web application. The result is a well-rounded command of Ruby that is especially good preparation for learning professional-grade web development with a resource like the Ruby on Rails Tutorial.
Happy people
saying nice things!
Jimmy Wales Founder, Wikipedia
Q: What is Jimmy Wales' favorite book?
A: It changes often. At the moment, it’s Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl. :)
Quora link
About the Ruby Tutorial
About the Learn Enough Courses
I must say, this Learn Enough series is a masterpiece of education. Thank you for this incredible work!
— Michael K.
I must say, this Learn Enough series is a masterpiece of education. Thank you for this incredible work!
— Michael K.
I want to thank you for the amazing job you have done with the tutorials. They are likely the best tutorials I have ever read.
— Pedro I.
I have been trying to learn web development and programming on and off for the past 3 years and your website is the first one that I feel does the job right.
— Janelle S.
Just bought the new ebook and want to say keep up the great work!! The Learn Enough to Be Dangerous series re-ignited my desire to code after 10+ years of “meh”.
— Diane Y.
The Learn Enough Society and the courses are incredible. It’s the best value in the market of online courses in my opinion. Like you say, it’s learning to tech, which is very useful in our world.
— Sébastien D.
I just meant to tell you: your tutorial books from the Learn Enough series are awesome! The books are well-written, clear, concise, super-useful, and even fun to read. Thank you so, so much for this! I have bought the first three and will buy whatever you publish next. Keep up doing this very good work and thanks again.
— Pierre W.
Have been following the whole “Learn Enough to Be Dangerous” series and am VERY impressed with it. I am a project manager who works with software developers daily. These sessions have provided me with a huge amount very useful information, to the extent that I now not only understand what the dev guys are talking about, but am starting to use the tools (command line, Git, etc.) that they use.
— Brian
Michael Hartl is one of the best educators around when it comes to web development. I have been following him for a long time, and everything he produces is top quality. If you are looking for a quick way to become a thorough and productive professional web developer, Hartl’s books are a great place to start.
— Abram Bailey
Hi, my name is Philip, and I’m a beginning learner of web development. I’ve dabbled in small ways in Ruby/Rails for about a year and a half. Occasionally, I write ruby scripts to solve problems at my job. I also dabble in learning: JavaScript, Ember, more Ruby/Rails, brief intro readings into Scala.
I’ve tried Codeschool, Codecademy, and I’ll stop there, so you don’t spend the next 3 hours reading all the different learning resources I’ve tried.
Ruby on Rails Tutorial (Rails 5) is undoubtedly, the most effective and educational resource I’ve ever come across when it comes to learning anything about web development or writing any code on any level.
Here’s what you seem to understand that everyone else just gets wrong: There’s a big spectrum between the very beginner basics: declaring variables, to voodoo, magical, incantational trickery of witchcraft, like building your own web server.
Almost all tutorials make this mistake. The first couple “lessons” are good for people who don’t even have a clue what computer programming is and then suddenly, there’s a big jump to what seem to be concepts that only seasoned developers have mastered.
Thanks for such a great, educational guide in Ruby on Rails.
— Philip
About the Author
Michael Hartl
Michael Hartl is the creator of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial, one of the leading introductions to web development, and is cofounder and principal author at Learn Enough. Previously, he was a physics instructor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he received a Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is a graduate of Harvard College, has a Ph.D. in Physics from Caltech, and is an alumnus of the Y Combinator entrepreneur program.
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