There is no single place to look up documentation for our stack.
This card includes some hints where you can find API documentation. You probably want to drag a few of those links to your bookmarks toolbar. This will help in the upcoming exercises.
Ruby
Basic classes like String
, Error
, Hash
or Object
are part of the Ruby standard library:
- DevDocs for Ruby 3.3 Show archive.org snapshot : Pretty web interface for the Ruby standard library
- RubyDoc for Ruby 3.3 Show archive.org snapshot : Official docs for the Ruby standard library
- RubyAPI for Ruby 3.3 Show archive.org snapshot : A nice API for the official Ruby standard library
Ruby on Rails
Since you will use Rails more than any other gem, you will always want its documentation to be close:
ActiveSupport
ActiveSupport extends core classes in Ruby Show archive.org snapshot .
We are so used to having ActiveSupport around that we don’t even think of it separate from Ruby anymore.
Which is why some methods you would expected to be documented in Ruby are actually in the Rails docs, e.g.
-
Array#to_sentence
Show archive.org snapshot -
String#dasherize
Show archive.org snapshot -
Hash#slice
Show archive.org snapshot -
Object#presence
Show archive.org snapshot
Libraries
The best way to learn about a Ruby gem, Javascript libary, etc. is often to find the repository on Github and look at its README
file. Here are a few examples:
- https://github.com/makandra/active_type Show archive.org snapshot
- https://github.com/travisjeffery/timecop Show archive.org snapshot
- https://github.com/stefankroes/ancestry Show archive.org snapshot
Some libraries also publish dedicated sites with their documentation, e.g.:
- http://unpoly.com Show archive.org snapshot
- https://lodash.com/ Show archive.org snapshot
- https://fontawesome.com/icons Show archive.org snapshot
Web Platform (HTML, JavaScript, CSS)
The best reference to look up information on HTML tags, JavaScript features or CSS properties is the English MDN Web Docs Show archive.org snapshot .
External APIs
When you're using external SaaS APIs, they often publish language-independent documentation. Some examples:
- https://stripe.com/docs/api Show archive.org snapshot
- https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/reference Show archive.org snapshot
- https://www.twilio.com/docs/api/rest Show archive.org snapshot
Anything not mentioned here
- Google is your friend.
- You might also want to consider using search keywords.
- DevDocs Show archive.org snapshot also supports many of the languages and libraries above and allows one to add a customized search profile as default.