Monday, December 6, 2010

Best books for Rails programmers

Students often ask me for Ruby on Rails books that I could recommend.
There are two Rails books that I recommend:

Agile Web Development wit Rails (if you start with Rails)
Ruby for Rails (once you know Rails)

However, there are some books that are not about Rails, but I think that every Rails programmer should read:

Refactoring - Martin Fowler

This book teaches you what is elegant code and how easily you can change your existing code into something beautiful :) It also teaches many OOP concepts.

The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master - Andrew Hunt and David Thomas


Lots of useful techniques every programmer should know. Testing, debugging, version control etc.

Peopleware - Tom de Marco


It's not technology that matters. It's people. Read it before you start any bigger project.

Death march - Edward Yourdon


Why projects fail. What to ask for before you join a new team.


What other books would you include in this list?