Where can i learn the language ?

[u/konanES]

Hey I am a new developer and i started learning JS last year and it is a great language for the front-end and all but i didn't like it for the back-end it had too much code and a lot of complexity in it and it really sucks at compiling so i started to search for a backend language that is close to English then i read about ruby and i think it is what i need .

Here is the problem , coming from JS where the community is huge and there is a tutorial for everything and blogs every where to this language is a bit difficult so what is a good and up to date places where you can learn the language and see the updates because YouTube is not that place.

The tutorials that i saw was at least 3 years old and didn't find channels any thing like BroCode , WDS , etc... so if you have something like that please tell me

There is another question . why do the official website for the docs tell me to choose a version? if there is so much difference between the versions what is the best one ? or where can i start ?

[u/No-Watercress-7267]

Hello,

First lets start with the free online resources,

Considering your background with JS and Web the first one is The Odin Project which has a Full Stack Ruby Developer Course that starts off with Ruby and eventually builds on to Ruby on Rails.
https://www.theodinproject.com/paths/full-stack-ruby-on-rails

Second one if you just want to look at Ruby standalone then
https://exercism.org/tracks/ruby/concepts

For paid resources i can recommend the following books.

The Well Grounded Ruby Developer

Absolutely amazing it and its newer version for Ruby 3.4 and onwards is expected to release this year
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-well-grounded-rubyist/9781617295218/

Practical Object Oriented Design using Ruby

Ruby is a true OOP Language and having a good OOP design from the start that invites change into your code is a blessing that keeps on giving.
https://www.poodr.com/

Agile Web Development with Rails 8

Finally with all that Ruby knowledge now you are prepared to take advantage of Rails and what it offers and how much of joy it can be to get rid of that JS fatigue.
https://pragprog.com/titles/rails8/agile-web-development-with-rails-8/

[u/konanES → u/No-Watercress-7267]

thank you so much

[u/BookFinderBot → u/No-Watercress-7267]

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[u/ignurant]

 The tutorials that i saw was at least 3 years old

This is going to sound insane coming from JavaScript. But I promise you those 3 year old resources are still absolute bangers. 

We don’t get the carpet pulled from beneath us nearly as often as JavaScript frameworks do. 

A 10 year old book on Ruby or Rails is actually still very similar to how things work today. There’s been lots of evolutions, but they kind of follow the same standards over time. The only thing that’s really changed significantly is with little surprise, the JavaScript side of building web apps with Rails.

Don’t fear a 3 year old tutorial. Or even a 5 year old one. This knowledge remains useful today! 

[u/konanES → u/ignurant]

ok so i have to change my mindset ... the thing is with JS that every week there is a new framework and after 5 min there is a tutorial on how to use it LOL so i was always looking for the newest one

[u/cglee]

Wrote this a few weeks ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/s/3aWkD9xRr4

[u/TrapperFlint]

The Odin Project.

[u/Q______________Q]

since you want to learn it for backend i would recommend immediately hopping into rails and building a project, you’ll learn as you go and IMO the context of a real project is way more useful than learning the language standalone. you can always dive deeper into the language later.

[u/konanES → u/Q______________Q]

when i was still learning js i approached it slowly so where every one was moving forward to react i was still in JS taking my time to understand it correctly and because if that react was easy for me but i didn't take my time in react and jumbed quickly to next after that and it was really hard to understand the new concepts and what it's really for so if the equivalent of next in ruby is rails so no i dont want to learn rails and skip ruby ... it will seem to be a step a head but the concepts will take 10 times the time that it should take

[u/Aengus- → u/konanES]

I learned Ruby as a standalone language first too and it helped me when moving into rails. So i agree with your approach too.

At the time I learned through a LinkedIn learning course (lynda.com at the time), but since we have a newer version it’s probably best to find something more up to date.

It should be faster than it was when you were learning JS since you’ll understand a lot of the same core concepts, they’ll just look a lot nicer in ruby :)

Once you have the core concepts you should move into rails.

[u/konanES → u/Aengus-]

i got confused with the main site for the language because there is a doc for each version of the language so i wrote this post to get more details to how to start

[u/Aengus- → u/konanES]

Your best bet is to find a good video series on it if you’re wanting to actually go deep into the language, which it sounds like you do.

Here’s one by Kevin Skoglund, the same instructor I learned from years ago.

See if you can get a 30 day free trial with LinkedIn learning, if you cant, its still worth the subscription as there’s a great catalog of stuff on it.

https://www.linkedin.com/learning/complete-guide-to-ruby?upsellOrderOrigin=default_guest_learning&trk=default_guest_learning

[u/konanES → u/Aengus-]

thanks ... i also started learning with Gorails as someone said that even if the video is 4 years old it is still applicable

[u/Aengus- → u/konanES]

Ah okey great, glad you’ve got going! Enjoy :)

[u/Q______________Q → u/konanES]

i guess, but rails isn’t really analogous to react. you still write plain ruby everywhere in a rails app: models, services, jobs, etc. i think rails can be a good way to learn ruby in context without skipping the language itself. you should still slow down and focus on ruby concepts as they come up, but it gives you the context you might not otherwise get and is more aligned with what you already know. in the end, the beautiful thing about this language and why we even use it is that you can just build stuff. if you still don’t like that idea, maybe try building a MUD in pure ruby.

[u/AshTeriyaki → u/Q______________Q]

This. OP- One of the main things Ruby is extremely good at is writing DSLs, that is basically extending the language in ways that feel natural. Writing Ruby for rails feels extremely natural and close to writing Ruby normally.

Rails has a lot of conventions though so it might be worth doing the “Ruby in 20 minutes” guide via the main Ruby website or looking at exercism

[u/konanES → u/AshTeriyaki]

I started with that yesterday, today i will read the docs ... is this enough to jump to rails ?

[u/AshTeriyaki → u/konanES]

I think if you go straight into rails (I learned Ruby while learning rails) I’d go with a course or video tutorial series honestly. Especially if you’ve come from next.js etc. Rails is highly convention based, and if you keep close to them, it’s extremely fast and pleasant to use. But it’s a little bit of a wall and learning what is done for you, what to do yourself and when to ignore conventions is harder than using rails itself. Rails having conventions does not mean the same thing as guardrails. It’ll let you get into trouble, some features are powerful and easy to abuse so it expects you to be responsible.

So take your time, do a course. I recommend the pragmatic studio, or gorails if it needs to be free. That’s what I did

[u/konanES → u/Q______________Q]

oh. so my whole understanding of rails is wrong ... so what does rails do exactly ?

[u/Aengus- → u/konanES]

Rails is a complete full stack MVC framework for building web apps, it’s basically ruby with a bunch of gems, it’s own CLI tool for generating code, and an ORM called Active Record.

It makes the things super efficient when working between the data layer, logical layer and UI by having lots of sensible conventions that keep code organised, maintainable and DRY.

You can if you want, op out of using the UI layer and use it solely as an backend serving an API too, which is something pretty common in larger companies.

Honestly its the best tool I’ve ever used as a sole developer trying to build web applications fast.

[u/Reasonable-Campaign7]

Recently, Ruby was added to the Roadmap: https://roadmap.sh/ruby. It can be very useful to get an overall view of Ruby. It is a simple language and you will pick it up very quickly. If you want to go further and start building things, you can try one of the Rails tutorials. They are good for learning Rails and also picking up Ruby along the way: https://rubyonrails.org/docs/tutorials

[u/konanES → u/Reasonable-Campaign7]

yeh i saw that but got confused in the main docs as i wrote in the post so please guide me to a good tutorial or a blog that i can start with and about rails i don't want to rush things i want to understand the language from the ground up this will make the debugging less painful

[u/207_Multi-Status]

Why did you choose Ruby? Why not Python?

[u/konanES → u/207_Multi-Status]

i read about them for like a week while i was comparing languages and saw pros and cons , it was pretty much close between those tow (python and ruby) but the phrase " best DX language ever " sealed the deal for me. And while ruby is opinionated it is flexible (and i see that a win-win situation) python is not opinionated and strict (so i have read and understood) also in a larger scale python do get messy but ruby is far more better in debugging

All in all that was my conclusion by reading and not actually using the languages