How to learn Ruby

Throughout my journey as a Ruby on Rails developer, many developers asked me what the best way to jump from another programming language (Go, PHP, Python, Javascript, etc..) to Ruby and Ruby on Rails was.

As an agile developer, I iterated through my methodology for each developer.

So, I decided to share this methodology with you, that’ll help you to learn Ruby and Ruby on Rails to write code eligible for production in one to four weeks — as a junior developer, of course.

This tutorial is crafted for developers who have at least one experience in web development. For the others, I can’t guarantee that it’ll take between one and weeks. But this way to learn the framework is still relevant for you guys.

Can I have 15 minutes of your time?

This section is probably the most important of this blog post. Indeed, Ruby and the Ruby on Rails framework are very special.

If you come from another background it can take years to understand the philosophy behind Ruby. The approach to writing Ruby code is different from other languages.

Of course, you can write Ruby code like PHP or Javascript. And your code will work. But you’ll miss the whole point.

So, before to start learning Ruby I’d strongly advise you to have a close look at these 3 resources:

• Unlearn programming to learn Ruby — By Rubycademy
• The Ruby Manifesto — By Yukihiro Matsumoto
• The Ruby on Rails Manifesto — By DHH

That’ll take ~15 minutes of your time. But in the end, you’ll understand what’s the purpose of Ruby and why you should reshape your current developer mindset for Ruby.

Learn everything you need to know about Ruby in 30 minutes

Ruby is beginner-friendly. It won’t take more than an hour to learn the basics.

Indeed, as it’s an intuitive language, you’ll be able to guess the code to write to achieve what you want in record time.

The official website provides a 30-minute tutorial that I strongly advise you to follow. The tutorial is very educational.

Become a junior Ruby on Rails developer

Note that it’ll be even easier to learn Ruby on Rails if you’re familiar with the MVC framework.

The Ruby on Rails framework

You need to be familiar with 4 parts of the framework to write production code. In the following order:

• Routing: when a Rails app receives an HTTP request, the router will redirect it to the right controller action
• Controllers and Actions: orchestrating the procedure to handle the HTTP request
• Models: manipulating the data needed to properly respond to the HTTP request
• Views: rendering the HTTP response

After that, You can follow the Getting Started with Rails official tutorial. That’ll help you to digest and reinforce your knowledge. You can be comfortable with these notions in two days.

Coding in a realistic environment

Now that you are familiar with the basics of Ruby and Ruby on Rails, it’s time to learn to write production code.

Indeed, in addition to your knowledge, you need to learn the most common libraries that allow you to write a more realistic web application (authentication, assets management, uploads, ACLs, background jobs, test coverage, etc..).

For this purpose, video tutorials can be a good way to learn these skills.

Indeed, a more experienced developer who explains to you how to build a production-ready web application in an hour is a valuable asset.

I found a tutorial that proposes to do a clone of Instagram using Ruby on Rails. I advise you to watch it twice and reproduce the code to get familiar with the Ruby on Rails ecosystem.

Once you get comfortable with the code and libraries provided in this tutorial (or some other that you found) you will be ready to start coding with Ruby and Ruby on Rails.

Additional resource

Here, are a few resources to go further:

• RSpec: the most popular library for test coverage
• Sidekiq: the most popular library for handling background jobs
• Rubygems.org: a listing of all the gems (libraries) of Ruby
• Ruby on Rails official documentation
• Ruby official documentation

Conclusion

With this methodology and some discipline (and resilience), you can write production code as a junior developer within one to four weeks.

💚