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

336 points by trevorturk 16y ago

trevorturk 16y 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 16y 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
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - rue 16y ago
    It has gotten a little easier since…
- jules 16y 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`
  - bjonathan 16y ago
    I guess you never really tried to install a full dev environment for Rails on Windows...
    - jules 16y ago
      What constitutes a full dev environment? - Some kind of database: easy - Editor: easy - Version control: easy I guess you have never tried to build LLVM on Windows if you think that's hard ;)
      - bjonathan 16y ago
        No for real, try to install SQLite/Spork/Autotest/Rspec. It isn't that easy when you are a noob who only want to start to learn how to dev. Personnaly I was so sick and tired to get everyday a new problem when I wanted to install a gem that I setup a VM with Ubuntu and I launch it when I want to dev. Ubuntu is "user friendly"-ier than Windos for ONE thing setup a dev environment. And as nobody dev on Rails under Windows it's very hard to find help or good tutorials when you encounter a bug :(
        jamesbritt 16y ago
        'Ubuntu is "user friendly"-ier than Windos for ONE thing setup a dev environment.' Well, apt-get is pretty sweet in general. More to the point, while Windows Ruby dev is certainly doable (and I did it for years with comparatively no more hassle than on Ubuntu), the advantage of developing on Ubuntu is that it is far more likely to match your server environment. It sucks big time to be cruising along and then discover that some plug-in or tool that would solve a dozen problems for you requires a C compiler and a POSIX environment.
        jules 16y ago
        I ran this on my parent's machine: gem install sqlite3-ruby autotest rspec And it installed everything. That wasn't hard was it? Granted, I didn't test the gems. The only problem is with spork: gem install spork gave me an error. I plugged it into Google which gave me the resolution: delete rake.gemspec and gem install rake (the one click ruby installer on windows seems to come with a bad rake), then gem install spork. All of this, including installing Ruby took like 5 minutes.
    - knotty66 16y ago
      MRI still sucks on Windows. If you HAVE to use Windows, you'd better off using JRuby.
  - dangrossman 16y 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.
    - tibbon 16y ago
      I found Homebrew really helped out on the Mac. I've had my problems with rails installations, but they were generally in trying to get specific rails code working- not getting a teaching instance up.
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      Let me guess.... debian? Everywhere else it's totally sane.
      - sp4rki 16y ago
        Ironically enough, I've never ever had any problems with setting up a rails stack in Debian. Not my cup of tea distro, but some people I work with swear by it. I guess it has to do with all the stuff I do and preset when creating an image to base servers of. Nevertheless, I've found Ruby and Rails easy to install in any machine I've tried them in (A LOT), and I guess that for less Unix inclined users it might get a bit complicated along the way.
  - trevorturk 16y 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 ;)
  - olalonde 16y 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.
    - sp4rki 16y ago
      It's probably a fluke on your setup. What package manager did you use that didn't work? Are you a Unix/Linux type of guy? Most people that aren't have hard time installing any *nix based development environment. I mean, you got an error telling you there was not sqlite3 and you tried the gem and no dice, it's pretty obvious what to do if you're familiar with any Linux. To be fair though, I believe there's no mention of you needing sqlite3 on the download instructions on the main download site, which ultimately leads to confusion. I'm not trying to sound aggressive or anything, but I think that this type of issue is more related to to using some outdated or excessively complicated guides on the internet that always leave something out, in comparison being hard to get ror up and running.
      - olalonde 16y ago
        I've been working with Linux for many years (Ubuntu is my main desktop right now). Ubuntu's gem package simply isn't compatible with the latest version of Rails which means you have to install rvm and figure out lots of stuff.
  - mcritz 16y 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 16y ago
Just when I was thinking that there couldn't be an easier introduction than railstutorial.org + heroku.com.
LiveTheDream 16y ago
This reminds me a bit of Heroku's initial offering, which was an online IDE combined with the insta-deployment.
- jonpaul 16y ago
  Does Heroku not have the IDE anymore?
  - LiveTheDream 16y ago
    Correct. herokugarden.com redircts to heroku.com now.
sudonim 16y ago
Glancing at Why's poignant guide is probably a good step too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whys_(poignant)_Guide_to_Ruby http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whys_(poignant)_Guide_to_Ruby
danishkhan 16y ago
Man, I thought ruby koans and hacketyhack were amazing interactive tools. This is amazing and a lot of fun too.
abrudtkuhl 16y ago
Was looking for something just like this last night. Awesome.
mrchess 16y 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 16y ago
  By then you're hooked and more willing to invest the time.
catshirt 16y 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 16y 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 16y 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.
- tibbon 16y ago
  And some people don't enjoy the CHUNKY BACON(!!!) vibe either, but it didn't stop _why from being awesome.
  - Deadsunrise 16y ago
    at least the chunky bacon vibe was original and creative. Now there's fucking zombies everywhere.
obiefernandez 16y ago
This feels like an important development for Windows users that want to try Rails. (Assuming it works on IE)
- patrickaljord 16y ago
  The editor is skywriter which is based on canvas, so it doesn't work on IE<9 https://mozillalabs.com/skywriter/ https://mozillalabs.com/skywriter/
Adam503 16y ago
We're getting really, really close to the "one zombie thing too many" threshold as a culture. But this is pretty sweet :)
reedlaw 16y 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.
- patrickaljord 16y ago
  My heart pumps blood.
jhubert 16y 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 16y 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 16y ago
Oops: http://d.pr/Chjg http://d.pr/Chjg (I'm working with EnvyLabs right now to fix the hole).
JoelMcCracken 16y ago
This is really similar to something I have been working on. Awesome.
patrickk 16y 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 16y 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 16y ago
  Didn't Heroku have something like this a while back?
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    It was their original product, yes.
thenayr 16y 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 16y ago
This is one of the most enjoyable ways to learn Ruby/Rails I have found so far. Great idea!
tectonic 16y ago
Why do I have to signup first?
onlythestrong 16y ago
Can somebody explain on how insecure code is detected? I tried system('ls') and received: #<InsecureCode: Bad Code Zombie>
prafulla 16y ago
Just finished the 5-lab course. Amazing stuff.
mcantor 16y 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.

336 points by trevorturk 16y 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 16y 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
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- rue 16y ago
  It has gotten a little easier since…
jules 16y 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`
- bjonathan 16y ago
  I guess you never really tried to install a full dev environment for Rails on Windows...
  - jules 16y ago
    What constitutes a full dev environment? - Some kind of database: easy - Editor: easy - Version control: easy I guess you have never tried to build LLVM on Windows if you think that's hard ;)
    - bjonathan 16y ago
      No for real, try to install SQLite/Spork/Autotest/Rspec. It isn't that easy when you are a noob who only want to start to learn how to dev. Personnaly I was so sick and tired to get everyday a new problem when I wanted to install a gem that I setup a VM with Ubuntu and I launch it when I want to dev. Ubuntu is "user friendly"-ier than Windos for ONE thing setup a dev environment. And as nobody dev on Rails under Windows it's very hard to find help or good tutorials when you encounter a bug :(
      - jamesbritt 16y ago
        'Ubuntu is "user friendly"-ier than Windos for ONE thing setup a dev environment.' Well, apt-get is pretty sweet in general. More to the point, while Windows Ruby dev is certainly doable (and I did it for years with comparatively no more hassle than on Ubuntu), the advantage of developing on Ubuntu is that it is far more likely to match your server environment. It sucks big time to be cruising along and then discover that some plug-in or tool that would solve a dozen problems for you requires a C compiler and a POSIX environment.
      - jules 16y ago
        I ran this on my parent's machine: gem install sqlite3-ruby autotest rspec And it installed everything. That wasn't hard was it? Granted, I didn't test the gems. The only problem is with spork: gem install spork gave me an error. I plugged it into Google which gave me the resolution: delete rake.gemspec and gem install rake (the one click ruby installer on windows seems to come with a bad rake), then gem install spork. All of this, including installing Ruby took like 5 minutes.
  - knotty66 16y ago
    MRI still sucks on Windows. If you HAVE to use Windows, you'd better off using JRuby.
- dangrossman 16y 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.
  - tibbon 16y ago
    I found Homebrew really helped out on the Mac. I've had my problems with rails installations, but they were generally in trying to get specific rails code working- not getting a teaching instance up.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    Let me guess.... debian? Everywhere else it's totally sane.
    - sp4rki 16y ago
      Ironically enough, I've never ever had any problems with setting up a rails stack in Debian. Not my cup of tea distro, but some people I work with swear by it. I guess it has to do with all the stuff I do and preset when creating an image to base servers of. Nevertheless, I've found Ruby and Rails easy to install in any machine I've tried them in (A LOT), and I guess that for less Unix inclined users it might get a bit complicated along the way.
- trevorturk 16y 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 ;)
- olalonde 16y 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.
  - sp4rki 16y ago
    It's probably a fluke on your setup. What package manager did you use that didn't work? Are you a Unix/Linux type of guy? Most people that aren't have hard time installing any *nix based development environment. I mean, you got an error telling you there was not sqlite3 and you tried the gem and no dice, it's pretty obvious what to do if you're familiar with any Linux. To be fair though, I believe there's no mention of you needing sqlite3 on the download instructions on the main download site, which ultimately leads to confusion. I'm not trying to sound aggressive or anything, but I think that this type of issue is more related to to using some outdated or excessively complicated guides on the internet that always leave something out, in comparison being hard to get ror up and running.
    - olalonde 16y ago
      I've been working with Linux for many years (Ubuntu is my main desktop right now). Ubuntu's gem package simply isn't compatible with the latest version of Rails which means you have to install rvm and figure out lots of stuff.
- mcritz 16y 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 16y ago

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

LiveTheDream 16y ago

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

jonpaul 16y ago
Does Heroku not have the IDE anymore?
- LiveTheDream 16y ago
  Correct. herokugarden.com redircts to heroku.com now.

sudonim 16y ago

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

danishkhan 16y ago

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

abrudtkuhl 16y ago

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

mrchess 16y 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 16y ago
By then you're hooked and more willing to invest the time.

catshirt 16y 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 16y 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 16y 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.
tibbon 16y ago
And some people don't enjoy the CHUNKY BACON(!!!) vibe either, but it didn't stop _why from being awesome.
- Deadsunrise 16y ago
  at least the chunky bacon vibe was original and creative. Now there's fucking zombies everywhere.

obiefernandez 16y ago

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

patrickaljord 16y ago
The editor is skywriter which is based on canvas, so it doesn't work on IE<9 https://mozillalabs.com/skywriter/ https://mozillalabs.com/skywriter/

Adam503 16y ago

We're getting really, really close to the "one zombie thing too many" threshold as a culture. But this is pretty sweet :)

reedlaw 16y 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.

patrickaljord 16y ago
My heart pumps blood.

jhubert 16y 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 16y 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 16y ago

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

JoelMcCracken 16y ago

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

patrickk 16y 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 16y 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 16y ago
Didn't Heroku have something like this a while back?
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  It was their original product, yes.

thenayr 16y 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 16y ago

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

tectonic 16y ago

Why do I have to signup first?

onlythestrong 16y ago

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

prafulla 16y ago

Just finished the 5-lab course. Amazing stuff.

mcantor 16y 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.