Rails for Zombies - Learn Rails from the comfort of your browser

by trevorturk • 16 years ago

336 57 16 years ago

trevorturk2• 16 years ago

This is a wonderful idea. Every time I try to get someone started with Rails, I sent them to the Rails Guides and warn them that "getting Rails up and running in the hardest part." Being able to have someone jump straight into videos and interactive prompts from their browser is going to be so much better...

brianbreslin• 16 years ago

getting rails up and running was for me the big dealbreaker when i first looked at it 5+ years ago. this is an excellent idea by gregg and the gang at envylabs though

jules3• 16 years ago

Rails is very easy to set up. Easier than any other software for programmers I've used.

1. Install Ruby with your package manager or with the installer for Windows (that's just download, next next next, done).

2. In your terminal: `gem install rails`

bjonathan2• 16 years ago

I guess you never really tried to install a full dev environment for Rails on Windows...

dangrossman• 16 years ago

You had a good experience. Lots of people don't. Getting the environment set up took me hours, and I'm a programmer. First I installed Ruby with my distro's package manager. Then I followed the instructions in the book and installed gem from the RubyGems website. Uhoh, not supposed to do that anymore, Ruby comes with a different version of gem. The new Rails website tells me I need a different version of Ruby, the one my distro installed doesn't work with Rails 3. Remove Ruby, try to remove the rubygems-I-shouldn't-install-myself, start over. Install the latest Ruby, then rails from the gem. Try to install some gems I will need, they won't compile. Ruby was compiled without support for some library. Go find, compile and install that library, then recompile Ruby with that feature (after researching how to compile specific libraries into it), and retry installing the gem. OK, on to the next gem, which needs another missing library. How did Ruby even compile if all these necessary libraries weren't there? Continue like this for hours until I finally have Rails and the few gems I'll need working and can see the default page on a web server.

Simply following your two step instructions on any of my servers would not create a working RoR setup.

trevorturk2• 16 years ago

I've helped a number of people "get started with Rails" over the years, and I've had to help every single one of them get their environment set up properly.

I think there's tremendous value in this kind of site. If someone comes up to you and says "how can I get started with Rails?" now you can just point them to this site and tell them to get in touch when they've finished the tutorials. Then you can help them set up their environment properly ;)

olalonde2• 16 years ago

I just installed RoR on a clean Ubuntu install and it wasn't easy at all.

First, I had to install rvm (Rails wouldn't install with Ubuntu's Ruby packages) which took some time to figure out. Then I tried installing Rails and got some problem related to sqlite3. I then figured out that I had to install the sqlite3-ruby gem. Of course it didn't work. I found out I had to install the libsqlite3-dev package.

The whole process took a good 30-60min.

mcritz• 16 years ago

Exactly what I was thinking. I'm barely starting with rails. On Mac all I did was:

gem install rails; rails new hello_world; rails s

Then I watched the damage on localhost:3000

Rails has been fantastic. I'm a designer — I don't really have a background in programming — but rails has been incredibly accessible. It makes a lot of sense to me.

evanrmurphy• 16 years ago

Just when I was thinking that there couldn't be an easier introduction than railstutorial.org + heroku.com.

LiveTheDream2• 16 years ago

This reminds me a bit of Heroku's initial offering, which was an online IDE combined with the insta-deployment.

jonpaul• 16 years ago

Does Heroku not have the IDE anymore?

LiveTheDream2• 16 years ago

Correct. herokugarden.com redircts to heroku.com now.

sudonim• 16 years ago

Glancing at Why's poignant guide is probably a good step too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whys_(poignant)_Guide_to_Ruby

danishkhan• 16 years ago

Man, I thought ruby koans and hacketyhack were amazing interactive tools. This is amazing and a lot of fun too.

abrudtkuhl• 16 years ago

Was looking for something just like this last night. Awesome.

mrchess• 16 years ago

Good idea to simplify things but just side-stepping around the issue and delaying the reality that it really isn't this easy. You're eventually going to have to get dirty if you really want to do anything -- configure ruby, install gems, learn git, deal with gem versions... ah, good times.

rapind• 16 years ago

By then you're hooked and more willing to invest the time.

catshirt• 16 years ago

The whole package here is a great idea, but the "labs" have insane potential.

I would jump on the opportunity to build labs for other languages if they offered an sdk of some sort.

bphogan• 16 years ago

Love it, but I can't shake the feeling that the people who I want to show this to would not dig the zombies vibe. Maybe I just hang around too many people who do Real Serious Business (TM) programming. :)

It's neat as hell though.

btucker• 16 years ago

Totally agree. Would love this minus the zombies. To me in cheapens what appears to be an incredibly rich learning environment. Not that I have anything against zombies, it just feels like it's trying really hard to appear fun/cool/hip, when it's already all those things just based on the core product.

tibbon2• 16 years ago

And some people don't enjoy the CHUNKY BACON(!!!) vibe either, but it didn't stop _why from being awesome.

Deadsunrise• 16 years ago

at least the chunky bacon vibe was original and creative. Now there's fucking zombies everywhere.

obiefernandez• 16 years ago

This feels like an important development for Windows users that want to try Rails. (Assuming it works on IE)

patrickaljord2• 16 years ago

The editor is skywriter which is based on canvas, so it doesn't work on IE<9

https://mozillalabs.com/skywriter/

Adam503• 16 years ago

We're getting really, really close to the "one zombie thing too many" threshold as a culture.

But this is pretty sweet :)

reedlaw• 16 years ago

While I love the concept and polish on this and would love to be able to recommend something like this to friends, I'm sorry but I have no room in my heart for zombies.

patrickaljord2• 16 years ago

My heart pumps blood.

jhubert• 16 years ago

This is pretty fantastic. I travel around to universities with the Yahoo! HackU program and have had a heck of a time teaching students ruby and the rails framework from scratch. This is going to make it SOO much easier. :D

As far as the labs thing goes, this feels like the future of interactive learning.

peteysd• 16 years ago

Wow. Just wow. This is incredibly well done. The videos (well, the ones I've been through so far) are informative and entertaining, and the site is well thought-out.

I think that if you can re-skin this and retool it for other themes/languages, you've got an excellent educational tool on your hands.

Good job!

judofyr• 16 years ago

Oops: http://d.pr/Chjg (I'm working with EnvyLabs right now to fix the hole).

JoelMcCracken• 16 years ago

This is really similar to something I have been working on. Awesome.

patrickk• 16 years ago

Kinda makes you wonder why all your development can't be 100% web-based. No messy installs, version control built in (autosave like gmail?)...if your deployed app is web-based, why not your entire development environment?

jpr• 16 years ago

I haven't had my second cup of morning coffee yet, so I'm having trouble imagining how one would bootstrap that kind of thing.

ryanhuff• 16 years ago

Didn't Heroku have something like this a while back?

steveklabnik2• 16 years ago

It was their original product, yes.

thenayr• 16 years ago

Isn't a huge part of learning a new language being able to install and configure it in the first place?

Also the went WAYYYYYYY overboard with the whole zombies thing. We get it, zombies are trendy these days, please just keep them away from anything learning based.

danielhodgins• 16 years ago

This is one of the most enjoyable ways to learn Ruby/Rails I have found so far. Great idea!

tectonic• 16 years ago

Why do I have to signup first?

onlythestrong• 16 years ago

Can somebody explain on how insecure code is detected? I tried system('ls') and received: #<InsecureCode: Bad Code Zombie>

prafulla• 16 years ago

Just finished the 5-lab course. Amazing stuff.

mcantor• 16 years ago

  If you've never touched the Ruby Language before, we
  recommend playing through TryRuby.org first.

Recommend?!

This is why we can't have nice things.

Rails for Zombies - Learn Rails from the comfort of your browser

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