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?

3 comments:

Filip Tepepr said...

"The Rails Way". It was awesome. Waiting for the "The Rails 3 Way".

seban said...

Ja polecam:
The Rails Way
Ruby. Wzorce projecktowe - recenzja: http://blog.sebastiannowak.net/2010/04/15/ruby-wzorce-projektowe-recenzja/
Refactoring. Ruby edition. recenzja: http://blog.sebastiannowak.net/2010/03/11/refaktoring-ruby-edition-recenzja/

Staszek said...

There is ruby edition for Refactoring book: http://www.amazon.com/Refactoring-Ruby-Jay-Fields/dp/0321603508