awesome_resources.md

To do more with Rails

This guide was written with inspiration from the following guides. These are some great next steps for ways to practice and expand on what you learned at Rails Girls:

Practical

• Getting Started with Rails
  • An excellent introductory guide structured like our guide, but it goes a little deeper. This makes it a good immediate next step.
• Hartl's Rails Tutorial
  • This book is recommended over and over again, and covers web development as a process, not just making a web application with Rails. It will take some time to get through, but is well worth the time if you are learning to be a web developer.

Each of those resources have their own lists of resources that are awesome.

Supplementary

Other magnificent resources for learning Rails and staying up to date include:

• RailsCast
  • This is a collection of screen casts. From the about page: "The screencasts are short and focus on one technique so you can quickly move on to applying it to your own project. The topics target the intermediate Rails developer, but beginners and experts will get something out of it as well."
• Ruby Rogues
  • This is a popular podcast about Ruby. Listening to podcasts is helpful. Even if we don't understand everything that is being said, we can stay up to date, become familiar with some terms, gather questions to ask, and hear about recommended resources.
• Ruby Weekly
  • Weekly emails with the latest news about Ruby and Rails helps us keep up to date with the latest tools and resources to check out.

---

For other common goals

• To code for science, data, and academia
• To code in Javascript
• On interface and interaction design
• On Learning to code online

To code for science, data, and academia

Python and R are essential tools in these fields, because of their constantly expanding toolsets from great contributing communities.

• Learn Python the Hard Way
  • A highly recommended books aimed at beginners with a stong focus on programming basics.
• Python for Data Analysis
  • An intro to data anlysis with Python.
• Quick-R
  • A great resource for learning some R.

To code in Javascript

Why is Javascript so popular? Because it runs on every browser, and therefore, on everyone's computer without any setup. While in some ways it might not be as friendly to learn as Ruby and Rails, if you're coding for the web nowadays, you'd need to know a bit of Javascript

It is great for making your web applications interactive on the client side. It's even becoming quite a bit of a thing on the server side with the rise of Node.

• Eloquent Javascript
  • A great introductory book about the basics of programming with Javascript. It sets up coding problems with a fun narrative.
• Learning Javascript Design Patterns
  • Design patterns are a great way to think about coding and helps us think about how to organize our thoughts and our code for building things. This book is a great introduction to design patterns and also how to implement them in Javascript.
• NodeSchool
  • A really fun and interactive way to learn some Javascript and Node through interactive workshops.

Supplementary

• JavascriptWeekly, NodeWeekly, and JavascriptJabber
  • Weekly mailing list with the latest about Javascript and Node and a podcast

On interface and interaction design

Theoretical

• Evidence-Based User Experience Research
  • Lots of cool research on different aspects of human computer interaction
• Hack Design
  • A weekly design course to your inbox

Practical and Inspirational

• Learn Layout
  • A site about css fundamentals and layout things commonly used in websites.
• codrops
  • Really inspiring examples of some of the things you can do with code and interface design
• Sidebar
  • Daily digest of the top design news and resources

On learning to code online

• ** Online learning communities **

  • **Code Newbie **
    • An extremely supportive online learning community
  • Learn to Code With Me
  • FreeCodeCamp

• This is a great discussion on learning with the following:

  • Codecademy
  • CodeSchool
  • Team Treehouse
  • Plural Sight
  • Lynda
  • Coursera

• One recommendation on how to learn Javascript

  • We don't agree with this whole thing, but there certainly are some great points to consider in this post.

More Lists

Teehee, this is a list of lists.

• List of free programming books
  • Some really great free books on here. In fact, reSrc.io in general is awesome. It aims to find and tag all free programming learning resources.
    • ** List of programming interactive tutorials** which looks like a lot of fun!
• Listing of Gentooman Library
  • Organized by topics, and covers a lot of things from algorithms, artificial intelligence, to game development, etc. Probably would be overwhelming to download the whole thing, but this is a good catalog of books to take note of for topics you are interested in.
• Node for Beginners