Got Rails?

[Spudinski]

I thought I'd share the following: A quite entertaining way of learning Ruby.

The guided tutorials are simple enough for anyone to get, though some parts of the language will be more familiar with experienced developers.

http://tryruby.org

An awesome site, it consists of a basic set of lessons to get you used to the language and interpreter.

http://railsforzombies.org/

I love their videos, even though it's a bit lengthy for those who just want to jump in.

In all, pretty decent way of getting acquainted with RoR.

S.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Spudinski
Updated links...

[Nickson]

I don't have ruby, I know nothing about ruby. So care to elaborate on its strong points, its goals and what not?

[Spudinski]

Ruby's intention is to be fun to use, and to be as expressive and clean as possible.

While the syntax is a bit on the "awkward" side for PHP developers, it may resemble some point of Javascript.

Edit: See http://www.slideshare.net/DefV/rails-advantages-and-techniques, it explains below in depth.

The things I personally find amusing from Ruby is:

- Ability to join methods to each other, much like one would do in Javascript(jQuery users will like this).

Example:

post = <<-"."
   Rails
   on
   Ruby
   .

print post.lines.to_a.reverse.join

 

Output:

Ruby
on
Rails

 

- Simple typecasting & conversion of variables, though it may be difficult to learn for first timers.

Example:

"50".to_i * 2 

Output:

100

PS. PHP developers may be used to "50" * 2 = 100
In ruby, it's "5050".

 

- Easy arrays, although arrays alone can not contain key=>val like PHP user would know. key=>val is done by Hashes.

Example:

long_array = Array.new
short_array = []
other_array = [a, b, c]
another_array = %w[a b c]
array_one   = %w'a b c'
array_two   = 'a b c'.split

 

- Ranges, "A range represents a subset of all possible values of a type, to be more precise, all possible values between a start value and an end value."

Example:

'a'..'z'
0..0
0.1...1.0

r = 'a'..'d'
puts r === 'c' // check if c is in range
true

 

- % Notations, and modifiers.

Any single non-alpha-numeric character can be used as the delimiter, %[including these], %?or these?, %~or even these things~.

[TABLE=class: wikitable, width: 1]

[TR]

[TD]Modifier[/TD]

[TD]Meaning[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]%q[ ][/TD]

[TD]Non-interpolated String (except for \\ \[ and \])[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]%Q[ ][/TD]

[TD]Interpolated String (default)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]%r[ ][/TD]

[TD]Interpolated Regexp (flags can appear after the closing delimiter)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]%s[ ][/TD]

[TD]Non-interpolated Symbol[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]%w[ ][/TD]

[TD]Non-interpolated Array of words, separated by whitespace[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]%W[ ][/TD]

[TD]Interpolated Array of words, separated by whitespace[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]%x[ ][/TD]

[TD]Interpolated shell command[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

Edited February 1, 2012 by Spudinski
code tags, takes getting used to...