On 4/7/07, Phillip Gawlowski <cmdjackryan / googlemail.com> wrote:
> John Joyce wrote:
> > While Rails does let you skip most of the JavaScript and SQL work, you
> > can't do it forever.
> > To really understand what you're doing you should learn a little bit of
> > it. You don't have to be an expert at it to use it, but you would be
> > doing yourself a disservice by avoiding those topics. SQL more so than
> > JS. JS is pretty easy if you've done any C / PHP / Perl  type of
> > programming.
>
> Well, it takes a bit pressure off one's learning, that's for sure. It's
> best to tackle areas of knowledge one at a time. The trick is to find
> out which area can come afterwards. And IMHO, while important, SQL and
> database management and data modeling theory can take a backseat,
> especially given ActiveRecord or DBI.

I agree. Getting some familiarity with Rails isn't a bad way to get a
breadth first introduction to what the OP is looking for without
getting bogged down with details.

I'd recommend that he get himself a copy of the 2nd ed of Active Web
Development with Rails, and work through it.

He'll get enough introduction to the concepts of Ruby, AJAX, and SQL
to know what to start looking for in more depth.

The prototype library which Rails uses to do AJAX does a fairly good
job of hiding the nasty differences between browsers, and the
descriptions in AWDWR have enough about the issues to provide a hook
for further learning.

And eventually digging in to the source code to try to figure out HOW
Rails and ActiveRecord and their friends are doing their magic will
provide a good 'textbook' for further study.

-- 
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/