Ask HN: Resources for a PHP to Rails transition

5 pointsJFitzDela14y ago4 comments

I'm taking a break from launching endless waves of apparently useless apps/services (no complaints), and I figure in my downtime I might as well begin picking up a new platform/language to tack onto the ole resume' if nothing else. Rails seems to be sticking around for the moment, so I think I'll look that way.

I've got both broad and deep experience in PHP/MySQL development built over the course of 8 years of client, professional, and personal projects. I've also dabbled for the last year in ColdFusion (bleh) and .Net development for my day job. I'm also familiar, or at least was once, with the basic tenets of MVC development and the Rails platform (most of my PHP work is built on a custom skeleton I've cobbled together over the years).

What I'm after, then, is not so much a "this is Ruby on Rails, this is scaffolding, this is xxxxx..." tutorial, but rather any resources that folks in a similar position have used to pick up the platform with professional development.

I've done the basic "let's see how easy it is to build a blog" type tutorial (and will again), but what's a good "next step" towards professional, polished Rails development?

Thanks for the advice!

- John

4 comments

clyfe14y ago

I came to Rails from a PHP background around 2006. I already knew some MVC. I learned Rails from "the book": http://pragprog.com/titles/rails3/agile-web-development-with...

I highly recommend the rails guides: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/

tsigo14y ago

When I was first, first starting this transition, http://railsforphp.com/reference/ was helpful for the "What's Ruby's equivalent of this PHP method?"-type questions, because I was learning Ruby at the same time.

hector_ka14y ago

You could try this http://railscasts.com/

JFitzDelaOP14y ago

Thanks, all! Excellent suggestions.

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