What Hacker News says

faroutApr 2011

here are the three that within in a month you should be able to write some sweet apps quickly.

1. Head First Rails I first poohed this book but I had read 7-8 other books adn still was confused so I thought what the hell. I did each project several times and started making changes. Totally awesome especially the ajax integration parts. This is when I could actually make my own simple apps in less than a week.

2. I loved Agile Programming book - totally awesome. Not enough apps though. Great explanations. Gentle exposure to Ruby.

3. beginning novice to professional for ruby. I love this book. It is just plain fun. Good examples. I totally had fun with this. Peter is totally totally awesome - I wish he would write every tech book!!

Now you have the grounding, start making and asking questions.

What killed me was the UX/UI stuff. Then a friend suggested CSS Mastery book and using blueprint this got me clued in. Now I was not paralyzed. It was so awesome to see an app created in literally minutes.

I loved RoR - I miss it terribly. I disliked the community. Fanboyish. It was like being in all male high school with everyone thumping their chests and no help.

I still miss it very much. Whenever I code I first think in RoR then do it in php. My background was coldfusion, c#asp.net, java, etc. I need something dumb simple and php does the trick. And the people are nice and there are tons and tons of example to do anything. Also I needed something that is simple to deploy and maintain. Yeah yeah -RoR is easy to deploy - my first deployment took me several hours. Whereas php was minutes. In terms of sys admin and performance and optimization, I rather deal with php. As DBA, I do not really want an ORM. BTW when you feel good with RoR - check out Enterprise Rails - wow - good stuff on performance and optimization.

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faroutMar 2011

Ruby on Rails. Get the Head first Rails book then the Agile programmer book, see amazon. There 2 excellent Ruby books:Beginning Ruby and Pragmatic Ruby but you can do those later.

Then practice like hell. meaning do each project in each book 10 times until you understand how to do it without look at the book. Then do some screencasts. Put all your projects even the ones from books and screencasts online. In the meantime, make something, anything. Take a project from one the books and modify it. Then make another thing. Then make something that someone else already made with rails.

Now you have 3 sites in your portfolio. A month has passed.

Send the links to your projects and a brief email to the companies that do rails regardless if they have opens or not.

Also list the 3 things unique about you. Why should they hire you versus another person who also knows some RoR?

With this you should be able to a choice from several junior rails positions.

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faroutFeb 2011

I went crazy too trying to learn everything. Everyone had the same advice: just use the Internet.

Try this book. it is phenomenal. Learning PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Dynamic Websites http://www.amazon.com/Learning-MySQL-JavaScript-Step---Step/...

After you are done with that, try this book: PHP and MySQL Web Development http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dst...

And after you are done with it. Beef up your css with this one:CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dst...

Once you are done with that, get your jQuery groove on with this: jQuery: Novice to Ninja http://www.amazon.com/jQuery-Novice-Ninja-Earle-Castledine/d...

then you can go on to jQuery cookbook and Professional JavaScript for Web Developers

Personally I love ruby for rails (ror) rather than php. But for development/sys admin and the developer community, I would stick with php. I have used cakephp which is ok. Not like RoR (which I pine for). But the development community is much nicer. If you decide to learn RoR go with: Head First Rails and Agile Web Development with Rails. There are some others that I have not read but are have good reviews in Amazon.

Oh yeah - stay away from Dreamweaver. What a piece of crap.

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ApolloRisingOct 2009

There are quite a few choices. You won't go wrong with any of these from amazon. (URLS provided by amazon, not a spam or affiliate link)

Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional (Beginning from Novice to Professional) (Paperback) http://amzn.com/1590597664

Simply Rails 2 by Patrick Lenz Permalink: http://amzn.com/0980455200

Head First Rails: A learner's companion to Ruby on Rails by David Griffiths Permalink: http://amzn.com/0596515774

Beginning Rails: From Novice to Professional (Beginning from Novice to Professional) by Jeffrey Allan Hardy Permalink: http://amzn.com/1590596862

I suggest you pick up a version control book as well: svn or git from pragmatic programmers, may as well get this part done early so it becomes transparent.

Good luck

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vnchrDec 2010

HN, what is the best path for me to reach CODER status?

I've been laid off from the startup where I've worked the last year doing technical support (due to politics, unfortunately...). I love entrepreneurship and technology, in all its forms. And along with my traditional job search, I'll be investing significant time in the coming months to improve myself.

I'd like to code for basic income and as a creative outlet. I love creating things, and I've always gotten a kick out of the little websites I've made (and I have fond memories of particular algorithms from ENGR 101).

Ideally, I would like to help other entrepreneurs by building MVPs for them as well as providing the corresponding business advice for that stage of development.

About me:

- I'm a technical generalist (B.S. industrial engineering, took a few programming courses way back when)

- I know basic HTML and CSS

- I just scored a freelance job for January to customize a Wordpress site for use as a CMS for a network of business professionals

- I'm currently reading HEAD FIRST RAILS to get the basics of Ruby on Rails

- In the mail is HEAD FIRST PHP & MYSQL to get the low-down on that fun stuff next

- I thought Python would be worth a dive (Google's class on YouTube looks cool)

HELP ME, HN; YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE.

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