Foreword to the First Edition

My former company (CD Baby) was one of the first to loudly switch to Ruby on Rails, and then even more loudly switch back to PHP. (Google me to read about the drama.) This book by Michael Hartl came so highly recommended that I had to try it, and the Ruby on Rails^™ Tutorial is what I used to switch back to Rails again.

Though I’ve worked my way through many Rails books, this is the one that finally made me “get” it. Everything is done very much “the Rails way”—a way that felt very unnatural to me before, but now after reading this book finally feels natural. This is also the only Rails book that does test-driven development the entire time, an approach highly recommended by the experts but which has never been so clearly demonstrated before. Finally, by including Git, GitHub, and Heroku in the demo examples, the author really gives you a feel for what it’s like to do a real-world project. The tutorial’s code examples are not in isolation.

The linear narrative is such a great format. Personally, I powered through the Ruby on Rails^™ Tutorial in three long days,^* doing all the examples and challenges at the end of each chapter. Do it from start to finish, without jumping around, and you’ll get the ultimate benefit.

Enjoy!

—Derek Sivers (sivers.org)
Founder, CD Baby

* This is not typical! Getting through the entire book usually takes much longer than three days.