Forum Now Up & Running
I thought it would be nice to have a discussion forum. I tried to look for a forum program written in Ruby, but I was not able to find one. If anyone knows a good forum program written in Ruby AND USABLE, please drop me a line.
Anyhoo, it’s now up and running at http://www.rubyhead.com/forum.
RoR Video Courses – Lynda vs. VTC
I had a chance to preview both Lynda.com’s and VTC’s new Ruby on Rails video training. I always said that the screencasts and videos are much better way to communicate and learn. It’s much more effective than reading a book since… I’m not going to a rant about this, but you get my point.
Presenters
I found both presenters to be very articulate and easy to listen. This may be completely subjective, but I prefer Lynda.com since the presenter at times talks about what happens in the real world as well. Either way, both companies did very well with the presenters.
Contents
This is where Lynda.com really shines. It flows much better and the content is rock solid. VTC looks as if it’s put together in hurry. I also like the fact that Lynda.com starts with a good overview of the Ruby language. Lynda.com does much better job of teaching the architecture of Rails and explains in greater detail.
Price
$99.95 for VTC
$25/Mo. subscription for Lynda.com
Conclusion
Lynda.com’s Essential Ruby on Rails is an excellent learning tool, and comes out as a winner. I still believe that attending an instructor-led training is the best, but this is a great fun way to learn Ruby on Rails.
Upgrading Ruby to 1.8.5
I decided to upgrade Ruby from 1.8.4 to 1.8.5. I don’t know why, but I completely forgot about configuring the install with “readline” location on my MacBook. As you already guessed, Ruby didn’t work. It gave me an error message that I couldn’t make sense of. I’m certain that I’m not the only one with a momentary lapse of the mind. Remember, when upgrading or recompiling Ruby on your Mac, always type “./configure –prefix=/usr/local –enable-pthread –with-readline-dir=/usr/local” before make and make install.
