RubyZone, RailsSpace, and Ruby DVDs

dZone has recently introduced a set of ‘zones’ with original content, forums, and other things about specific topics to compliment their social bookmarking site. One of these is the RubyZone. I’ve been asked to work as a ‘Zone Leader’ there, writing new material and helping build the community. Even before I’d gotten there someone else had written some material, a review of the book RailsSpace: Building a Social Networking Website with Ruby on Rails.

Since there are a lot of people who can do a better job of reviewing Rails books, I’ve been trying to stick to pure Ruby (or other non-Rails) books recently. But I feel like I should point out something about this book. Addison-Wesley is moving their Professional Ruby Series beyond books and ‘digital shortcuts’ and into video with the release of their RailsSpace Ruby on Rails Tutorial

I’ve lent a copy of this to a friend from church who’s just getting started with Rails. Every week now, he comes up to me and tells me how wonderful Rails is and how excited he is to be working with it. The DVD contains over 5 hours of video spanning 15 tutorial sessions. Judging from my friend’s response, I’d say that this video is a great way to get started with Rails.