INTERVIEW: How to start coding on Ruby on Rails?

Those, who only start their way of becoming a Ruby on Rails developer have tons of questions. We have gathered the most common of those and asked Yury Kaliada, co-founder of Rubyroid Labs and one of RoR lecturers about them. Find answers and a list of useful links inside!

What are the main advantages of Ruby on Rails?

RoR allows you to bootstrap your application much faster than using something like Java or .Net. So it is a great tool to start the project with and validate the idea. More than that, RoR application will work just fine for a couple of years until you will get really huge amount of users (1M+). That’s why it is a good choice for 80% of the projects.

For what projects does it suit best?

It suits very well for web applications that do not require extreme things. It will work fine for huge amount of users and will allow you to grow and add features quickly. These characteristics are vital for business to react on constantly changing situation.

Why did you decide to develop on Ruby on Rails?

Big community and nice support. Large amount of ready-to-use libraries, which saves time and money.

What are the best resources one can study Ruby on Rails?

1. You can check our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVMhNTgjF6jTeTmX-DXvQBw (unfortunately all the videos are in Russian since Rubyroid Labs are teaching local students).
2. http://railsforzombies.org/
3. http://guides.rubyonrails.org/
4. https://www.bloc.io/ruby-warrior#/
5. http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596516178.do
6. http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Development-Rails-Facets-Ruby/dp/1937785564

Please give a piece of advice to those, who are going to start learning Ruby on Rails.

You have a long way to go. There is a high chance that you will become a full-stack developer not just a backend or frontend developer. That’s why you will sit in front of your computer for hours, days and months. But after all I am sure you will be happy you decided to take that way. Ruby and RoR were designed by developers and for developers thus they are easy to use and understand. All that things make life of a developer better, much better!

On November 14 you will be able to meet Yury at Ruby Power Meet up in Minsk. He will be talking about Apache Thrift and ways to combine a few languages. So if you are in Minsk, don’t miss a chance!