I played around with Ember.js on and off last year and after building some quick demos I decided to invest some real time in building real web apps with it. I have been keeping track of some useful tips and resources for people starting out with Ember.js.
Ember.js Guides
The official Ember.js Guides and Tutorials walks you through the very basic concepts for someone starting out, and slowly getting into more “advanced” concepts and features. Those guides are truly written in a simple to understand tone only using technical jargon where necessary. I definitely suggest going over these guides before starting out with Ember. I’ve kept them handy since they are also useful for future reference.
The guides also have a very useful section, Cookbook. It provides answers and solutions to common Ember questions and problems.
Ember.js API
The Ember.js API is usually my second go-to website. It’s very useful to learn about the different available classes that make up Ember. It contains usage examples for methods, properties, and events. They also link directly to where they are defined, if you are into checking out the source code.
Ember CLI
Ember CLI is an Ember.js command line utility. It provides an ideal project structure based on Ember App Kit. For building anything more than a simple demo using Ember CLI makes a lot of sense and makes building with Ember way easier.
Useful content
- Built With Ember
- Getting started resources for Ember.js by Giovanni Collazo
- Videos from Ember Camp 2013
- Ember Watch
- Ember Weekly
- Embercasts
- EmberFlare
- Ember Hot Seat
Learning by doing
I’ve always found that the best way to get started with new technology is to pick a project and just work on it.
Learning from others
Learning from other people’s work is also very helpful. There are many people that are really active on the Ember.js community either because they are part of the core team or just love the framework and contribute back to other open source projects. When in doubt check out some of these influential organization’s/individual’s open source projects.
- Ryan Florence
- Stefan Penner
- Alex Matchneer
- Erik Bryn
- Addepar
- DockYard
- Brian Cardarella
- Robert Jackson
- Robin Ward
- Trek Glowacki
Getting Help
The Ember community uses StackOverflow to track questions. So its a good rule of thumb to search on SO before asking around. You can also join the Ember.js Discussion Forum which is usually a good place to discuss features and best practices.
The IRC channel #emberjs on Freenode is usually very active and is a good place to find people that might help you out. Apart from being polite, it’s usually a good idea to have code that you can show, so others can reproduce your problem. Don’t copy code on IRC, instead use something like JS Bin.
Let me know if you have any other useful tips, resources, etc…