Hacker News Reader

Comment by colellm | Hacker News Reader

Any suggestions on things to read so I can start to learn. I am going to buy a book on rails (agile web development). Know of joel on software. Programming.reddit.com. Anything else?

View on HN

I've been working on a big project involving Adobe Flex for the past year. Before we started the project, they brought in Adobe trainers for 5-days of on-site, slightly-better-than-powerpoint Flex training. Too much information - from one topic to the next. We all knew no Flex. Theoretically, we could have learned Flex from the online tutorials but after the recovering from the deluge of 5-days of Flex we could claim plausible knowledge. Then, we sat on it for 4 months - no flex. Of course, not until we started trying to develop UIs using Adobe Flex 4 months later did we start to learn (painfully). But the training got us started.

The point of this little story - get help, ask questions (hacker personalities are problem solvers and love to solve problems), but get started. Training and mentoring can help bootstrap it. Ask a friend who is a programmer to help get you started.

You seem like a good writer - why not write a blog about learning enough about programming to build your own web application?

I prefer Python to Ruby, but language choice is another topic entirely. There are a number of web frameworks for Python that are AT LEAST as useful as Rails, including Django and Pylons. In some ways, I think Django might be better for the type of site you seem to be interested in. Of course, I'm going mostly on assumptions...

I know there are a number of Python tutorials that were written specifically for scientists that are new to programming. I would think that a few tutorials that use practical examples from your own field would make the wall a bit easier to scale than a tutorial that just addresses complete noobs? I don't know of any similar "Programming for Scientists"-type tutorials for Ruby... (?)

There is also a good intro to programming book that uses Python (Zelle is the author) that was recently adopted by MIT. If you want a stronger foundation - but with a potentially slower payoff - you should look at htdp.org and SICP, both of which use Scheme.

I do agree with shooter that python is good technologically... but the problem with Python web frameworks is that there's no one official framework yet for python that's overwhelmingly popular in the python world (though someone can prove me wrong). The end result is that there aren't that many books on stuff like Django (compared to other technologies), which really sucks when you're just starting out.

Rails on the other hand has tons and tons of books. I just started a little less than a year ago and I've caught up fast because of the plethora of books and communities for Rails.

in the end, if you happen to find your partner quick - they may help you choose (that's probably the best route)

Forgot to mention - check out some video tutorials of Rails programming:

http://rubyonrails.com/screencasts

http://railscasts.com

http://peepcode.com (not free but really really good - they actually have 2 vids that covers all of the basics of Rails - in I think about 3-5 hours; you're not goign to remember all of it in the 1st run but it gets u comfy)

a decent list of resources

http://railshandbook.com/

http://rubyinside.com

http://dzone.com

http://poignantguide.net/ruby/ -funny and useful intro into ruby itself

How many books do you need for a web framework?

Django is pretty simple. There's already the official book in print. Not to mention one of the reasons Rails has so many books to begin with was due to really poor online documentation. Django doesn't have that problem.

Usually I think havings lots of printed documentation is very important, but in Django's case, due to its simplicity and quality of existing docs, I don't think it is an issue.

different people learn in different ways just like different people teach the same subject in different ways. To me having more variety helps out a lot.

Techwise - Rails and Django are more or less the same (compared to the other stuff out there). Rails just has a bigger community than Django. I think that really helps for someone just starting out (with a deadline to boot)

There's even more books on Java. Maybe you should pick that up :) take a look at some tutorials if you want to learn python web programming. It doesn't take a book to START making useful sites with something like Pylons.

Maybe I should start offering some Pylons lessons online (for free, just to spread the love).

well Ruby and Python are near equivalent - so it's unfair to bring up the java point...

Great sites are nice but you shouldn't discount the power of books in the very very beginning of learning when you're not on your Nth programming language. I think u and I are so far off now that we forgot what it was like starting out...

I'd rather have a few good books and "tons and tons" of quality libraries.

I also think that having a choice among frameworks is a good thing.

imho Rails has that too

besides the Python community is in the midst of consolidating web frameworks... there's a reason for that

I could be wrong but doesn't Django only have one book? Do the other Python frameworks even have a book for them (as opposed to chapter or two in a general programming book)?

To get started with Rails, learn at least minimal Ruby first:

http://tryruby.hobix.com/ Read "Programming Ruby" part I

Find something that has you start AND finish something, anything. Almost any O'Reilly book. Read the reviews on Amazon to see if it's the right thing. Webmonkey also has lots of beginner tutorials. The technology doesn't matter. The important thing is to try to BUILD something, fail (or not), and finally get it working. The first time you see something YOU wrote actually work, it's orgasmic.

An oldie but goodie:

http://webmonkey.com/webmonkey/programming/php/tutorials/tut...

You can't get wet from the word "water".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com