Resources I use for Ruby/Rails Programming
Here can be found some of the resources I found helpful while learning Ruby, and how I used them (and continue to use). I’ll separate the sources into two categories: Reference and Practice. Reference refers to sources that helped me understand the theory of Ruby and the technical aspects of the language, while practice refers to sources that show how some of the methods and ideas are or could be utilized in actual programs. I think it is important to note the difference.
Reference
Ruby-doc.org is an excellent resource for quick lookup of all the different methods available on Ruby. Invaluable for learning and memorizing the standard class methods. Ruby-doc has a search function on their site that filters methods and notes the classes associated with each method for specific use and syntax.
RailsGuides is the foremost authority on Rails. This site contains guides, API, and even a forum for Rails use. The “Guides” portion is super helpful in understanding what tools are at your disposal for different parts of Rails like ActiveRecord, testing, associations, and everything else. This is where you go if you need to understand the conventions used for “Rails Magic”.
Practice
medium.com
Blogs are a great place to find how to implement certain ideas and concepts found in reference. I’ve found Medium to be a great place to see how people translate the dense information in reference, into a normal way that people talk, ha! Maybe it’s because most boot camps (Flatiron at least) make their students add content to these blogs. Great way to make coding more accessible and readable. If I’ve found the reference material on a subject to be tough to understand, this site is where I go to see if someone has made the concept more consumable.
stackoverflow.com
Solutions to specific problems. StackOverflow is where programmers go when they have given up all hope of figuring out a problem on their own. This is pure Q&A to find out how to do something. Hopefully, someone has already asked the question you have. If not, make a post and hope for the best!
