Is Rails hard to understand for a PHP developer?

Question

i know nothing about ruby but a lot about php.

when you code in ror...do you actually understand what is going on under the surface if you are a beginner? and do you HAVE TO understand it or is it good enough just to know enough to build something fast?

Looking for experiences from people who have made the transition.

Answer 1

IMO having gone from C# to Ruby on Rails back to C#, is that you can get by with simple apps that fully meet the Rails "opinions" without knowing what goes on. However, you'll run into roadblocks the minute you have to do something that's not a trivial CRUD task or need to implement a CRUD task in a different way than the normal render a form, user hits post, basic scaffolded create controller action way. Once you hit that, you'll need to learn more of Ruby itself to figure out exactly what Rails is doing.

Answer 2

Oh yes and as you specifically address rails, there is an up to date, magnificent set of resources at Rails Guides. In addition to a lot of great advice in the many answers here.

Answer 3

I would also suggest picking up a copy of The Ruby Programming Language. For me it's the php.net of ruby.

Answer 4

Being a PHP developer for a few years now, and coming from a C and C++ background, I can tell you that learning Ruby after PHP is not very hard at all (subjective, but so is the question). Ruby, of course, has it's own idioms and 'best practices' which vary from PHP, but I think you'll find Ruby fun and easy to learn. Many of the 'gotchas' in PHP aren't present in Ruby, so it makes learning the language a bit easier. Plus, if you have any sort of OOP background, you'll be that much better off in understanding Ruby.

As others have pointed out, you can build simple apps with Ruby on Rails quickly enough, but if you need to do any heavy lifting you'll have to begin to understand what lies underneath and how Rails operates. This is no different than with PHP and one of it's various frameworks, such as CakePHP or CodeIgniter.

I also suggest checking out the book Rails for PHP Developers if you are interested in learning RoR.

Answer 5

You'd be alright if you picked up "Agile Web Development with Rails" - http://www.pragprog.com/titles/rails3/agile-web-development-with-rails-third-edition

Answer 6

To answer your basic question, as like in all things, you will learn as much as you want to. Do you need to understand what is going on under the hood, no. Do you need to know how ExpressionEngine works in order to create a web site using it?

As for learning Ruby, this is highly advised. Anything beyond trivial websites will require you to know and understand Ruby and its idioms.

I think the biggest problem with going from php to Rails is the method of development. Far too much PHP is created with all, or a lot, of logic sitting in the view. Rails applications are created with all the logic existing in the models. If you understand this, then you are already a long way into understanding Rails.

As for resources, I would recommend getting the book Ruby for Rails: Ruby Techniques for Rails Developers by David Black. It is designed to take you from a Rails developer to being a Ruby developer.

+1 for all the other resources listed above.

Answer 7

Get the book (+1 to Eric). Also check out http://railscasts.com/

Answer 8

Ruby can be tough, writing Ruby with Rails is easy! The language is natural and reads really nicely. Deploying Rails apps is where (IMO) the challenge lies. You'll have no problem if you know PHP well, especially when you have a book like Rails for PHP Developers