Pointers for a C# Developer Learning Ruby on Rails

Question

I've spent the majority of my professional career developing in C#. To broaden my abilities I've recently begun learning Ruby on Rails. Thus far I've found scaffolding a basic CRUD app in RoR to be easy and fun. I am well aware that I have barely scratched the surface of what RoR is capable of but am curious if there is anything I should be aware of as a delve further into the language.

Specifically, are there any typical pitfalls that a C# developer will fall into? What are some common misconceptions? Any ideas on tools to use?

Answer 1

I was in the same boat and now loving Rails. Here is the route I took.

• Worked through a very good two part tutorial that starts here. This will give you a good grasp on the basics of developing a Rails application from beginning to end.

• Get the "Agile Development with Rails Book" ... both the soft-bound and the PDF. A great book and I'm always going back to the PDF version as I develop my RoR applications.

• A great set of free/paid screencasts that will help you out on everything from developing Rails apps to deployment etc...:

  • Railscasts
  • Peepcode

Download a copy of Netbeans (free) and use for your IDE. Will look very familiar to you as it mimics as close as any IDE the feel of Visual Studio. Its not the fastest (a lot of folks like Textmate for the Mac) but it works on Windows/Mac/Linux and has some really nice debugging features, intellisense and gui-driven dialogs that you'll probably be more at home with vs. running everything from the command-line/terminal.

Anyhow, all of that should get you going. If you are familiar with ASP.NET MVC then Rails will make even more sense as it heavily inspired Microsoft's MVC framework. The lack of VS caliber intellisense at first seemed a bit daunting but as you start to work with Rails you'll quickly see just how intuitive/readable Ruby is and you won't miss it at all.

Good luck

Answer 2

This site looks like it's for you, Softies On Rails: "Ruby on Rails for .Net Developers"

Answer 3

Rob Conery did a great post comparing C# and Ruby in The Reasons I Like Ruby. His post is a great jumping off point to see how a C# developer would do X in Ruby.