Banking On Rails

Over the years, I’ve watched the Ruby on Rails (RoR) community really grow.  Being a Delphi (and classic ASP) programmer, the language really appealed to me.  I still think Delphi has the best object-oriented implementation in the client/server environment.  Because RoR seemed similar to me, I started reading up on it a few years ago.

RoR is open source, which wasn’t an option for use at work, but I loved the potential of the language.  Now that I’ve started on my magical journey, I’ve decided to dive head first into the language.

Over the years, I’ve built quite a library of books and PDFs on the language.  However, I’m more of a “hands-on” kinda guy.  So last month I attended the Ruby on Rails course offered by Pragmatic Studio.  This class included three days of hands-on training and was taught by Chad Fowler and Dave Thomas.  Considering the contributions of these two to the Rails community, I’m not sure I could have had better instructors.

I highly recommend this course and will be taking Part II once I have a bit more experience under my belt.  The only criticism I had was, there wasn’t an “answer key” given at the end for all the exercises.  It would have been nice to use as a reference.

My friend Tom Wilson, over at Jack Russell Software, also recommended Code School, which is developed by Envy Labs.  There are two Rails courses available on the site, Rails for Zombies and Rails Best Practices. Both are split into five lessons with multiple exercises that you complete in the browser.  If you get stuck, you are able to get hints that will help you complete the exercise.

I went into these courses thinking it would be about basic stuff that I can read in any Rails book.  However, I was pleasantly surprised.  Quite a few of the exercises dealt with material that was more advanced than the material reviewed with Pragmatic Studio.  I think it would be in the best interest of any level Rails developer to go through both of these online courses.  I’m sure you’ll come away with something new that you’ve learned.  Rails for Zombies is free while Rails Best Practices is currently being offered at a discount for $45.

I’ve already started to apply the knowledge I gained from Code School into the project I’m working on.  One thing I’ve learned from the courses at Pragmatic Studio and Code School is, I really need to start digging into the Rails framework.  Also, I need to live on GitHub.  Looking over the code from other people is another great way to learn.  I always seem to find that in Rails, there’s an easier way to accomplish your goal.

If you’ve been thinking about incorporating Ruby and/or Rails into your development environment, you’ll be in good company.  There are quite a few FinTech companies that use Ruby on Rails.  Some examples are The Garland Group, Geezeo, Jwaala, and BankSimple. If things work out, my start-up will be another.