Master Rails in 8 hours without learning all the APIs
Discover how some programmers seem to know everything about Rails, fix all the bugs, build and deploy an app in a few hours.
Have you ever wondered how some programmers seem to know everything about Rails, but you feel you can't keep up with all the changes? Perhaps you simply want to understand Rails but don't even know where to start?
This class is not about making you learn by heart any of the Rails APIs. This class is about understanding how it works once and for all. This class is about OWNING the damn thing! Your friends will regard you with respect, your family will celebrate your birthday twice a year, your dog will clean the house and wash dishes, DHH will beg you for a retweet and you'll lose 10 quadrillion pounds in 4 hours!*
* results may vary
Engine Yard, the leading cloud platform for Rails, recommends you take this class!
« Engine Yard University recommends Owning Rails as a powerful way to understand the framework from the inside out. »
« I thought it was thoughtful and well presented [...], helpful and very interesting! »
- Frederick Townes, CTO at Mashable
Why you should take this class
My name is Marc-André Cournoyer. I created Thin, the high performance web server used at Heroku, CloudFoundry, and many other big sites. I've also been creating complex Rails applications, like Talker, for nearly five years. In the process, I learned a lot about deployment, performance and Rails internals. I also dove pretty deeply inside the Ruby language by creating my own Ruby VM, tinyrb, and wrote a popular book on how to do it.
All the while, people asked me how I seem to know the Rails APIs and internals by heart. I often joked that I was spending lots of time reading the docs. Well ... I'll tell you my secret: I don't. I read the source code and I understand the design patterns and the architecture behind it.
That is what I will teach you in this class. I won't teach you specific APIs or make you memorize code like some tutorials do. I will teach you how to find your way in the Rails source code quickly to help you achieve what you want with your app faster.
Here's what previous participants said about the class
« This was one of the best courses I have ever taken. Not just on Rails, but any technology. »
- Matthew Carriere
« The Owning Rails course with @macournoyer was a mind-altering experience. »
- Stuart Ellis
« Owning Rails gave me new powers. I can't wait to use them. »
- Alain Ravet
« The material covered was great, and not something that I've seen anywhere else on the web, or read in a book. »
- Gavin Miller
« Owning Rails is great, well worth the cost when you come out a Rails ninja. »
- Noah Hendrix
« If you want to understand Rails, rather than follow recipes, this is the class for you. »
- Tim O'Leary
« Owning Rails course is really good. Anyone who is looking to dig deeper in Rails should take this course. It has made me realize that Rails is not written by aliens, just by people like you and me. »
- Rahul Trikha
« Very deep and useful, [Marc] obviously knows what he's talking about. [...]
Great approach to understanding Rails. Great explanations in response to questions. »
- Kurt Sussman
« Marc offers a must attend master class on Rails. He lifts the mystery behind some of the magical aspects of Rails and exposes the solid thinking and the outstanding work that has gone into the Rails framework. Owning Rails gets it done in 8 hours, which is frankly amazing and a credit to Marc. »
- Amal Chaudhuri
« Hours of deep diving into rails with a true expert! One of the best courses I have done. »
- Naghi Prasad
« Marc is a very talented guy. This class is a must if you want to understand how Ruby on Rails works and improve your performance when coding apps. Worth every single peny. »
- Mauro Morales (Full review)
« Your course, and the whole idea of "Owning Rails" is a REALLY big deal. »
- John Repko
« Well organized and very intense. »
- Mike Howard
« Stop thinking that Rails is magic: start seeing why it seems so magical!
I enjoyed much to build from the ground up a mini-Rails framework and start seeing that behind the magic there's a solid Ruby codebase :) »
- Pietro Di Bello
« The cheatsheets are awesome, concise but covering a broad range of key concepts. »
- Keith Woody
« If you've ever been afraid or mystified by the "magic" of Rails, Marc is your guide. Don't be afraid anymore. Take a dive into the internals of Rails. Forget that! Build Rails yourself. Owning Rails will take you a few steps closer to Level DHH. »
- Fred Lee
« Concepts were introduced in a very logical order. As an experienced Ruby and Rails developer, there were several times when I wanted to point out some interesting feature or pattern in the chat room... and then Marc-André would cover it in the next section.
Even at my level, though, I learned enough valuable new tools to make the class worthwhile. More importantly, I'm now inspired to go off and write my own MVC microframework in Ruby in a day or two -- and that's a great feeling! »
- Sam Livingston-Gray
Here's what you'll learn in my class
- Understand the inner working of Rails by building a mini-version of Rails, from scratch.
- Should this go in the model, the view, the controller or in a helper? You'll know instantly where to put your code using the simple rules I teach in this class.
- Did you ever bang your head on a bug only to find out days later it was a Rails bug? I will teach you to read Rails code to discover bugs in minutes instead of days.
- You'll be able to use Rails undocumented features such as responders, custom validators and form builders by quickly skimming over its internal code.
- Never get stuck in the framework again. Make Rails do what you want by altering its internals.
- Write extremely concise and reusable Rails code by understanding all the features it offers.
- Understand the path of a request in Rails, how a view is rendered ...
- And much more ...
You will also take home
- Downloadable copy of the slides used in the class.
- Cheatsheets summarizing important points for quick reference.
- Video recording of the class.
- Code from the class you can share, modify and reuse.
- Eternal and permanent awesomeness.
- Bonus A copy of Create Your Own Programming Language.
How it works
The class last a total of 8 hours over two days. We all meet at a given time in a chat room where you'll get instructions to start watching the streaming video of the class.
I will present the content using slides and live coding sessions. You can ask questions at any time using the chat room. Each module will end with a period of questions and exercises.
You will never appear on video. You only need to watch the live video of the class. You ask questions in the text-based chat room.
If you miss any part of the live class you can watch the recording of it any time you want.
When & Where
The class will be held on May 31 - June 1 from 9AM to 1PM ET each day (that's 6AM to 10AM PT, 8AM to Noon CT and 3PM to 7PM in Paris, Madrid, Athens, Berlin and Rome, check your time).
The class is full!
Sign up for the next one.
Everything is online, you only need a web browser (with Adobe Flash support for the video and audio).
Who is it for
- Rails developers who want to step up their game.
- Rails developers who want to create apps faster.
- Rails developers who want to contribute to Rails.
- Developers who want to understand how Rails works.
Still not sure what is required to take this class? Drop me a line.
You should NOT take this class if ...
- You want an easy and casual class you can follow while checking your twitter feed. This class is intense!
- You don't know anything about Rails.
- You have never created a Rails app (for fun or profit).
- You are already familiar with Rails internals, source code and architecture.
- You are David Heinemeier Hansson.
- You are a pony.
- You think none of this is funny. Because I believe learning should be fun, everything is done with lots of humor (especially this page).
If you're new to Rails and would like an introduction, I suggest the book: Agile Web Development With Rails before taking this class.
Here's what you get
This class will be highly interactive, I want to be able to answer all of your questions. Thus, each class is limited to 25 people.
I know most Rails training classes go for about $800 and up, but since this is online and I want to keep this class accessible, the price for the full 8 hours of interactive class, cheatsheets, exercises, a copy of Create Your Own Programming Language, plus the alumni discount ($200 off) on any of my classes, is $529.
However, if at any time during the class you feel that you're not getting your money's worth, I'll give you your money back and you keep all the material, no questions asked.
Sorry... all tickets are gone in a few days. Sign up to get notified as soon as the next class is announced.