What are the major differences between Rails 1.X and 2.X

Question

Most dead-tree books and web tutorials address Rails 1.X. I'm wondering if they are worth using to learn Rails 2.X. If so, what sections and concepts should I avoid and what have pretty much stayed the same?

Answer 1

One of my favorite books is the "skateboard" book from The Pragmatic Programmers, "Agile Web Development with Rails". Many of the things that have changed were moved from core into plugins, so if they are features that you want or need, then you can still use them. Most of the new features were adding, rather than removing things.

As mentioned in other comments, to find out more you can visit these links:

• http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2007/9/30/rails-2-0-0-preview-release
• http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/12/rails-20-docs

That said, I also have "The Rails Way" by Obie Fernandez which covers Rails 2.0. However, I still find myself reaching for the Agile book more often. You can get it, and the soon-to-come 3rd Edition here: http://pragprog.com/titles/rails3/agile-web-development-with-rails-third-edition.

Because development on Rails is so fast paced, it is very difficult for books to actually keep up with the framework. I find that reading blogs is the best way to stay abreast of new features that have been added or to find out about not-new features that I didn't know about.

Some of the blogs that I subscribe to (there are many, many more available than these):

• http://weblog.rubyonrails.com/
• http://delicious.com/jnunemaker/railstips
• http://railstips.org/
• http://blog.hasmanythrough.com/
• http://ryandaigle.com/
• http://railspikes.com/
• http://www.railsontherun.com/
• http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins

Answer 2

No, they are not worth using anymore.

If you want to start from scratch the very best things nowadays is to use the official Rails guide documentations.

There are folks still recommending the 'Agile' book out of habit but it's better to move on.

Having gone through the basic guides you can then check out screencasts such as the free railscasts from RailsCasts.com or the paid ones from PeepCode.com.

That's what I'd do if I started today knowing what I know now.

Answer 3

Have a look at this. It is from 2007, but it might give you some ideas. http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/12/rails-20-docs.

Answer 4

If you're into dead trees, check out The Rails Way by Obie Fernandez. It covers Rails 2.0 and is probably the best of the paper books about Ruby on Rails now. I would say it's currently better than the Agile book.