[LRUG] On learning Ruby/Rails

[Luke Redpath]

> Also, does anyone have any tips regarding "unlearning" all the awful
> PHP I'm familiar with, especially it's awful OOP mode, which I never
> really got to grips withl, so I can start afresh with RoR instead?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Pierre
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Try and use Ruby as much as you can, not just in the context of a  
Rails app. Write shell scripts in it, learn things like Rake to help  
you automate your life. Try writing some simple libraries. Throw  
yourself into learning its Test::Unit framework or alternatively,  
RSpec (rspec.rubyforge.org). Buy Programming Ruby 2nd Edition and  
really read it. Read lots of Ruby (not just Rails) related blogs -  
you'll eventually pick up on what is known as "The Ruby Way" - there  
are often many ways of doing things in Ruby but there is usually one  
preferred Ruby style - "The Ruby Way".

Maybe something like a small bug tracking application would make a  
change from the usual blog/todo list examples.

Don't discount the usefulness of simple toy projects like these  
though - whilst they aren't very interesting or complex from the  
domain side of things, they can be useful for playing around with new  
tricks and features in Rails edge, such as the new RESTful style  
controllers/routes and things like the simply_helpful plugin.

Cheers
Luke