Ten websites to learn Ruby on Rails for free

What do Amazon, IBM, Kickstarter and Twitter have in common, other than being great technology companies?

They all use Ruby on Rails. With so many things going for it, it’s an attractive framework that allows you to deploy web apps quickly and effectively. That’s enough to make you want to pick up Ruby on Rails!

So, I’ve put together ten good sites where you can pick up the framework as a newbie without paying a single cent. These resources will not transform you into a super programmer, but they’re enough for you to create a working application.

Note: Ruby is a programming language that can be used without a framework. But having a framework provides a structure for your code and includes a variety of powerful code modules that make many programming tasks simpler. Rails is a framework written in Ruby, so learning Ruby will give you good foundation to learn Rails.

Before you start learning, make sure you have a text editor (Mac/Windows) and have Ruby or Ruby on Rails installed (Mac/Windows).

The ten websites:

1. Roadmap for Learning Rails: This article provides a good road map to how you should go about learning Ruby on Rails and explains the different components of building a web app. Even if you don’t intend to pick up Ruby on Rails, you should read this.

2. Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby: A cute guide on terminology that will help you understand what “a string is passed to the method” means.

3. Try Ruby: This is an interactive site that teaches the basics of Ruby as you follow the short exercises.

4. Learn to Program: Wordy without being dry, I like how this guide teaches by showing you the input and output codes before explaining how it works.

5. Hackety-Hack: Probably the cutest way to learn Ruby! It works a little like Try Ruby, except that it a program you download instead of a web site.

6. Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer’s Guide: This is a very in-depth guide that’s suitable for people who don’t like to be distracted by cute cartoons.

7. Ruby Koans: This is not a guide where you can learn Ruby. Rather, it has many exercises that will test your understanding of the language.

8. Learning Rails: These 23 podcasts and screencasts teach you how to build a web application with Ruby on Rails. Plus, the materials also come as transcripts and both are downloadable.

9. Ruby On Rails 3 Beginner To Builder 2011 (Part 1 – 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7) (Part 8): Best resource for Ruby on Rails ever! The videos explain the terms and teach you how to build the entire application. This gives you a comprehensive, yet not overwhelming, view of using RoR.