The Pragmatic Programmers (who brought us the "Pickaxe") have decided to branch into screencasting with Pragmatic Screencasts. At launch, screencasts for Expression Engine, OS X Core Animation, Erlang, and Rails are available. On the Rails front, Ryan Bates (of Railscasts fame) has been brought on board to create a series called "Everyday Active Record." So far two episodes, each focusing on a different area of Rails / Active Record, are available (at $5 each) but more are promised over time.

The first two episodes are "Designing Models with Associations" and "Finding and Scoping Models." I've watched both and they do a great job of taking a chunk of Active Record / Rails functionality and demonstrating the "right" way to use it. Ryan's vast experience makes the screencasts good demonstrations of how to use Rails "properly."

The screencasts are certainly not for anybody who follows Rails Edge like a hawk and keeps on top of everything Rails, but for those who'd like to gain extra confidence from seeing a Rails master at work with Rails 2.1's features, they're a bargain. They're well produced, go along at a nice pace, and Ryan makes a good narrator. I look forward to seeing more from this series in future. Definitely consider checking them out, especially if you want to support Ryan for the hard work he does with Railscasts.

It's also worth noting that the Pragmatic Programmers are also looking for other people (see bottom question) who might be interested in working with them to produce more screencasts. They do the post-production and pay 50% royalties.

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