Over the past few years there has been a surge of Ruby and Rails books being published. After reading this book, you may be wondering what you could read next to further your knowledge. There seems to be two possible directions: getting to know more about Ruby or gathering a greater level of insight into Rails. My recommendation is that you do both, and you are probably better off doing them at the same time.
For Ruby, if you are a novice programmer, I would suggest you read either of the following two books:
Ruby for Rails by David A. Black, ISBN: 1932394699
Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional by Peter Cooper, ISBN: 1590597664
They are both excellent at bringing you from "zero" to a solid knowledge of the language.
Should you already be an intermediate or experienced object-oriented programmer, you should probably be able to study either of the following two instead:
The Ruby Programming Language by David Flanagan and Yukihiro Matsumoto, ISBN: 0596516177
Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition by Dave Thomas, Chad Fowler, and Andy Hunt, ISBN: 0974514055
Flanagan and Matz's book is simply amazing. It covers — with a lawyer-like rigor — the core aspects of the language (both 1.8 and 1.9), like no other book I've read on the topic so far. Even experienced Ruby programmers can learn from it. Dave Thomas' book, on the other hand, is a bit broader in scope and more tutorial-like. Being the first English book on the subject, it's also worth pointing out that most of us (relatively) early adopters first learned Ruby thanks to this title.
For Rails, having already read the book you are holding, the next logical step is to read an excellent book that's published by Wrox as well:
Professional Ruby on Rails by Noel Rappin, ISBN: 047022388X
Rappin does a great job of highlighting the best practices and providing practical advice for developing Rails projects with a test-driven approach. This is not a book for beginners and assumes that you know Rails already, but it will work well as your second book on the subject.
A third book, that will really help you move from an intermediate to an expert level, is:
The Art of Rails by Edward Benson, ISBN: 0470189487
An enjoyable, thoroughly researched, and well-written book, The Art of Rails is guaranteed to make you a better Rails developer. The only caveat is that its target audience is intermediate Rails developers, so you shouldn't approach it until you have some experience under your belt.
Finally, to learn more about Prototype, script.aculo.us, and AJAX in general, consider the following two books:
Practical Prototype and script.aculo.us by Andrew Dupont, ISBN: 1590599195
Professional Ajax, 2nd Edition by Nicholas C. Zakas, Jeremy McPeak, and Joe Fawcett, ISBN: 0470109491
Also keep in mind that all of these books can help you become very familiar with the technologies at hand, but only through coding and practical experience will you be able to become a pro.
3.138.35.193