The first time I heard about Ruby on Rails was when I stumbled upon the rubyonrails.org website. After seeing the video on how you could build a simple blog in under ten minutes I was sold.

Being an active PHP developer I was struggling to find the right programming standards and classes in order for me to have some base that I could use for faster and more secure development. Ruby on Rails has all these standards bundled into its own framework. Form validations and SQL injections are easy to overcome with Ruby on Rails and that in turn gives you more time to spend on the fun part: User interaction and!

But where to start? After reading several tutorials online and having my workspace setup (Textmate, Locomotive etc.) I was kinda struggling to get further. The whole Model View Controller part for instance was abracadabra for me. In PHP I would just render sql queries and html forms in the same file. In needed to get my fundamentals straight.

A quick look at amazon.com made me order my first Ruby on Rails book. I usually get most of my information straight from the internet, but I find that the books on Ruby on Rails give you way more in depth information and better code examples.

In this post I gathered around 4 books that are on my shelf and that make me a better Ruby on Rails programmer. Besides giving you fundamental information I really think these are fun to read. They are not full of dull function information that you could have gotten straight from the internet API, but they give you some real-world usages examples. The Books are all about learning Ruby on Rails by example and getting you more exited about building your own web apps.

Beginning Rails

Beginning Rails is the first book I ever read on Ruby on Rails. The intro part of the book nicely covers all the basics of the MVC (Model View Controller) structure rails consists of. If you are switching from PHP I really advice you to read this book.

Click here for more information on Beginning Rails

RailsSpace

RailsSpace is a really fun book that lets you learn by example. The book covers all abc’s on developing a social network website like Facebook.

Click here for more information on RailsSpace

Advanced Rails Recipes

If you’re a Ruby on Rails developer, you really should have this book on your shelf. Advanced Rails Recipes is full of real-world code snippets and priceless tips.

Click here for more information on Advanced Rails Recipes

Deploying Rails Applications

Deploying Rails applications has been one of my biggest pitfalls. Ones you get the hang of it it is not that difficult, but there are like a lot of things that can go wrong.

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