Hey Everyone!

[Sniph]

Hi there. I started programming with RoR about a month ago. It's my first attempt at learning a programming language, besides XHTML/CSS. So far, I have followed almost ever tutorial in the stickies, but I still feel like I am not knowledgable enough for what I want to be able to do. My current goal I set for myself is to create a web page that incorparates three ruby apps. A blog, a shout box and polls. The only problem is, there are so many things I don't know how to do, and I guess it's intimidating.. Enough Whining. I hope to learn a thing or two here and maybe even help a fellow out. - Sniph

[Fenrir2]

I think you should learn Ruby first, this is an excellent (free/online) book:

http://poignantguide.net/ruby/

Rails is much easier if you know how to program in Ruby. When reading a book about programming there is one really important thing: practice the things that you learn! When you learn how if's work: write a few programs that use it. Start with a simple program and try harder programs after that.

When you feel you've done enough Ruby, try the Rails tutorials again and create your own simple applications. I recommend you buy "Agile web development with rails" by the pragmatic programmers: it is an excellent book.

[Sniph]

Well, I guess I phrased my first post wrong. I did learn ruby first. I spent about a 3 weeks learning ruby, trying to understand how it works. I did write a couple basic aplications using basic statements.. But ya, I will check out that book. Thank ya.

[xmitchx]

The best thing to do is just start working on your projects, and when you run into a road block, just ask for help. If you don't start, how will you ever know if you're ready?

[JoL]

Yeah I think learning by doing is the best method

[samsm]

Yeah, feel free to ask questions. I find that often writting out a question is enough to make me realize the answer.

I assume you've made a simple scaffold or two?

The Rails api and Ruby documentation are both very handy once you get used to using them. I have both of those in tabs whenever I'm doing stuff with Rails, I just haven't committed all that stuff to memory.

[MiiJaySung]

I strongly recommend the Rails book that most people have got here. It goes through building a small e-commerce system, and manages to cover most of the main features you'll use on a daily basis. It's a great book because both experienced and not-so-experienced programmers find it is useful and fairly easy reading too for something that is targeted at such a wide audience.