Rails API Documentation Drive – Help make the docs better

A group of rails guys (Caboosers) are trying to raise $5,000 or more to get someone to write *good* documentation for the Rails API. If you’ve spent any time with rails beyond a superficial glance, you know that the docs can be, shall we say, lacking in some aspects. Especially now with all the new features (Restful controllers, Active Resource, etc) – this is needed more then ever.

To read more on this, or to contribute, please visit: http://blog.caboo.se/pages/documentation_drive

(Thanks Erik)

Live Blogging for Rails Day 2006

Erik Kastner, from Meta|ateM is live blogging his Rails Days 2006 project.

Updating his blog every hour or so, since early this morning, he is tracking his progress and explaining exactly what he is doing and working on.

Kastner’s project, MyOneGoal.com, will be a place for anyone to work on any one goal at a time.

For example, looking at 43 things, there are over 10,000 people who have listed the goal Lose Weight. That’s not specific or tme-based. “Lose 10lbs in 4 weeks� is all of those things.

Once you’ve set your One Goal, you’ll be able to come on each day and update your progress. Good, bad or the same, it’s the act of keeping the goal in the front of your mind that makes it happen.

Definitely check out his blog to track his progress.

Rails Day 2006 has begun

Welcome to Rails Day 2006. Rails Day is a 24 hours Ruby on Rails coding competition. At the end of the 24 hours, all projects will be closed and no more submission are allowed. A panel of judges will then evaluate each project entry based on code quality, completeness, creativity, user interface, and overall usefulness.

There is a rather big list of prizes for the winners of the 24 hour Rails competition, which include, a MacBook Pro, a Nintendo DS Lite, 60GB Video iPod, and the list goes on.

The contest runs until midnight EDT tonight. Good luck to everyone who has entered the competition.

Ruby on Rails: An extensive roundup of resources, projects, books, links, hosts and more.

Update: This article was added to digg. Please digg it!

Update #2: Thanks for all the comments. Adding all the resources to the list.

After seeing new Rails write-ups, tutorials, projects, etc.. pop up almost everyday, I decided to try and go through a lot of them and post the best and most useful ones. Below, you will find what I believe are to be the some of the best Ruby on Rails resources. If you know of some that I have missed, let me know via comments/email, and I’ll probably add them to the list.
Official Sites:

• RubyOnRails.org : Official RoR website.
• The Ruby on Rails Wiki : With Begginer info, Install guides for virtually any OS, Examples, HowTos(getting RoR to work with your DB, Test, Develop, etc), Tips & Tricks and lots more.
• Rails Complete API

Tutorials:

• Beginner’s Guide to Rails, part 1 : A series of tutorials for beginners.
• Getting Your Feet Wet With Ruby on Rails :
• Create Todo List with Ruby on Rails : A beginner’s Ruby on Rails tutorial – Creating a Todo App. (or download the PDF)
• Using Ruby on Rails for Dev on Mac OSX : A great tutorial by Apple, a must if you are going to be developing with RoR on OS X.
• Rolling with Ruby on Rails : An extensive beginner’s guide from Curt Hibbs on onlamp.com
• Rolling with Ruby on Rails, Part 2 : Part 2 of Rolling with Ruby on Rails.
• Ajax on Rails : Curt Hibbs’ third RoR tutorial.
• Distributing Rails Applications : Putting your Rails apps into production mode.
• Ruby on Rails on Oracle : A Simple Tutorial.
• Building Ruby, Rails, LightTPD, and MySQL on Tiger : Another great OS X tutorial.
• Ruby QuickRef : A useful Ruby language quick reference guide. (Thanks jopotts!)
• Instant Rails : A one-stop Rails runtime solution containing Ruby, Rails, Apache, and MySQL, all preconfigured and ready to run. (Thanks zonaprestiti!)

Articles:

• Ten Reasons Ruby Is Cool (Part 1)
• Ten Reasons Ruby Is Cool (Part 2)
• Ruby on Rails Book Roundup
• How to introduce Ruby on Rails in your company
• Exploring Ruby on Rails
• Ruby on Rails Fans
  

Ruby on Rails Open Source Apps:

• Simple Ticket : A Ruby on Rails based trouble ticket system.
• Substruct : The first Ruby On Rails Shopping Cart.
• Typo : Rails weblog.
• Hieraki2 : Wiki Meets Online Doc System.
• Collaboa : Project Tracker.
• Eribium : a content managing system packed full of features. (Thanks Alex!)
• Ajax Scaffold : get up an running with Rails and AJAX quickly. (Thanks Richard White!)

Some of the Real World Rails Sites (Thanks fanarama!):

• BaseCamp : A unique project collaboration tool.
• 43Things : Find your 43 things.
• CrispyNews : a site that allows anyone to create a community news site–for free.
• Kiko : a great, dead simple calendar you can use right in your web browser.
• Penny Arcade
• Here is a more complete list of Real World Rails Usage.

Rails Books:

• Agile Web Development with Rails : A Pragmatic Guide
• Ruby on Rails: Up and Running : From O’rielly, this is the Rough Cuts version. This book will be released July 1st. You can purchase the PDF now.
• Rails Recipes : a collection of recipes that will take you step by step through the the most cutting edge Rails techniques. This book will be released May 1st. You can purchase the PDF version now.
• Ruby for Rails : Ruby Techniques for Rails Developers : This book is available for purchase as a PDF or paperback.

Rails Hosting:

• TextDrive : TextDrive is a hosting company run by and for people who love publishing on the web. With plans starting as low as $12 per month.
• 3SHost : Rails hosting starting at $10 per month.
• DreamHost : Rails hosting for as low as $9.95 per month. (Coupon Code #1: 50RAILS and get $50 off when signing up. [Thanks Will Merydith!]. Coupon Code #2: SAVE96DOLLARS saves $96. [Thanks jopotts!]).
• HostingRails : Curious about rails? This free plan will get you started, but be aware of the small amount of disk space(50MB) and low montly transfer limit(1GB). No Ads, just free hosting for rails!
• You can find hundreds of more hosts listed on the Rails Wiki site.

Firefox extension:

• Search Ruby On Rails Docs with Firefox

Other:

• RadRails : An integrated development environment for the Ruby on Rails framework. (Thanks gookie from digg!)