More people keep me asking about how to get started with Rails. Here is my suggestion:

• Installation
• Windows: Be sure to check out Instant Rails, a preconfigured and ready to run Ruby on Rails package. Or you can use the first part of the Rolling with Ruby on Rails tutorial.
• Linux:
• If you do not have Ruby installed, either get it from http://www.ruby-lang.org , or use the package management system of your distribution.
• Install RubyGems:download it from http://rubygems.rubyforge.org, unpack and install with

  sudo ruby setup.rb

• Install rails:

  sudo gem install rails --include-dependencies

• The tutorials
• Probably the simplest thing after you have installed Rails is to start with Four Days On Rails. It is a simple and practical guide to get a quick overview of the possibilities of Rails, illustrated through building a real-life application.
• Another very good inroduction is Curtis Hibb’s Rolling with Ruby on Rails. It is more detailed than the first tutorial, also includes a full installation guide (for Win32). Part 2 can be found here, and Ajax on Rails is the third part dealing with (surprise!) Ajax in Rails.
• Amy Hoy has another nice introduction here.

• Books
• The bible of Rails development is definitely the Jolt-award winner Agile Development with Rails. If you would like to do more serious Rails development than just write some simple applications after reading the tutorials, i definitely recommend you to buy this book. The tutorials are very good to get the idea of what is RoR about, but they can not substitute the book.
• There are more interesting books out there, like Rails Recipes or Ruby for Rails but to get you started, the above mentioned book should be enough. If you want more, be sure to check out these as well.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 17th, 2006 at 2:26 pm and is filed under Rails, Tutorial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.