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Ruby

Hesam Alavi
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Hesam Alavi
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 2,280 Points
Posted by Hesam Alavi
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Hesam Alavi
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 2,280 Points

what to learn before Rails

Hi,

I would like to be competent in Ruby on Rails one day. i have started learning HTML and I know that it will take a while before I reach my goal. My question is what Tracks or libraries should I learn to become competent in Rails. There are just so many options and I just do not know what to do.

Thanks very much

1 Answer

Maciej Czuchnowski
Maciej Czuchnowski
36,441 Points
Maciej Czuchnowski
Maciej Czuchnowski
36,441 Points

You need to know HTML, CSS, maybe some JavaScript basics to start with, Ruby (although once you start learning Rails, you will see which parts of Ruby are used more often than others), as well as Git, Console and (Relational) Databases. Treehouse has courses that cover all these topics. Once you start learning Rails, you will start having problems caused by different versions of Rails itself compared to the version used in the videos, as well as with other gems. But until then, learn all the technologies that are used WITH Rails before you dive into Rails :). Also, get used to working with non-Windows systems. Rails development under Windows can often be frustrating and there isn't much support online, so make sure you're using a Unix system (Mac or Linux) on a dedicated machine or on a virtual machine or that you're working in a cloud IDE like Cloud9.

Hesam Alavi
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Hesam Alavi
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 2,280 Points
Hesam Alavi
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Hesam Alavi
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 2,280 Points

Thank you very much for your super quick response. So in the library section, I should learn ALL the HTML and CSS courses, some JavaScript. I am using a Mac which is good then. If I spend lets say 3 to 4 hours a day how long would it take me?

Maciej Czuchnowski
Maciej Czuchnowski
36,441 Points
Maciej Czuchnowski
Maciej Czuchnowski
36,441 Points

Take a look at the Rails Track in the Tracks section. It already has most of the courses you'd need. You can do some extra courses on HTML and CSS if you want to know more, but it's not necessary for a beginner. Doing ALL the courses in HTML, CSS and JavaScript sections is not a good idea, since they contain stuff that you won't use right away or ever :).

The "Install Ruby" course in that track is a bit outdated, so you should probably find and follow some third-party tutorial on setting up a Ruby on Rails development environment on your machine. Something like this one: https://gorails.com/setup/osx/10.10-yosemite

But since I don't use Mac, I have no idea if this tutorial is any good. I used their tutorial for setting up Rails under Ubuntu. Ignore the database section for now - Rails will provide you with a built-in starter database (sqlite) which is enough for your first steps in Rails.