Rebuilding Rails

Last week I began my re-entry into the world of Ruby and Rails... and loving it! 

Ruby is such a delight to work in. I'm repeatedly composing interesting (novel-to-me) combinations of syntax that just run the first time I try them (or with some obvious 8-bit edits, the second time).

My curriculum:

• Rebuilding Rails by Noah Gibbs — this well-crafted eBook is a step-by-step guide in building Ruby on Rails from scratch. It's like learning how cars work by building one. Noah has paid particular attention to detail and skillfully guides you through building-up the framework, piece-by-piece.
• LA Ruby Study Group lead by Cynthia Kiser — I found a local study group. In fact, I found out about the Rebuilding Rails book through this group.
• Ruby Koans by Jim Weirich and Joe O'Brien — A fantastic way of learning the Ruby by doing Ruby, tiny bits at a time. Ruby Koans is a sequence of unit tests (a path to enlightenment). In the beginning, all of the tests are failing (your karma is broken). Step-by-step you fix each test, picking up one little language concept at a time.
• New Questions on stackoverflow.com — of course, stackoverflow is a great resource that often floats to the top of Google searches containing programming terms. However, what I'm talking about is watching the New Questions About Ruby feed. If there's a question I might be able to answer, I give it a go. I've found that teaching others is a great way to learn.