As a web designer my skill-set is constantly having to be reviewed and updated. If I drop the web development side of me into the picture this gets even more of a priority. Lately, I have been reviewing what skills I use to create websites and one thing has become clear to me. it is all to easy to get carried on from one project to another without refreshing your skill-set. Your basic skills are of course always being added to with every day that passes. I am really talking about the things you learn from new not the ones you build on here.
My last skill review was really about a year ago when I dropped ASP and Perl whilst adding some more Javascript which at the time was lacking. There were many reasons for this and the decision is not one I regret. As I progress with freelance work I am made more and more aware of the importance of focusing and outsourcing what you don’t do – this is probably another post. I am lucky that I have a great pool of developers I can look to for things which I don’t do. This gives me the options of directing my skills as I want. This to me, is an essential part of being a freelancer and not having someone else determine my skills. For some reason, my low period work wise tends to be the winter months (I think this is the case for many) and the approaching winter is one that I want to use to start this review on.
I have always had a nice bundle with PHP, XHTML and CSS (a little drop of Javascript here and there, more after my skill review). I am now though becoming aware of wanting to add to this skill-set and there are a few strings I want to focus on. The main ones are really Ruby and AJAX. I have used AJAX before so it’s not a 100% new one to me, it’s something I am aware that I need to sit down and get comfy with rather than learn on the job. I am all for the learning as you go, but my freelance work rate currently (not that I am complaining about that) is not allowing me time to learn on the job.
What I am thinking of doing is taking a day a week and slowly building up these and the one I want to start with is Ruby and focus on the Rails framework. My reasons are not as many have done in seeking an alternative to PHP. I love PHP and as I’ve been doing it for a long time now I am not blind to the plus or minus points of the language. I do however, feel that Ruby has well and truly settled in as a great option. I love the idea of Ruby, the Rails framework and other advantages it offers and really want to play with this and see what can be done. I am happy in my PHP comfort zone but Ruby is looking like it will offer me advantages that are worth the back to the books. I have been looking from afar at Ruby for a while now and really focusing my investigation on Rails. I like what I see and the idea of easier and more efficient development is certainly appealing. I am a big fan of object orientated languages and this choice makes sense for that and many other reasons.
With this in mind, I am asking you all what you would recommend for starting Ruby and the Rails. Are there any books, any sites and anything you feel I should be warned / made to know about? My plans are to get on my local Apache install Ruby and Rails and then get some resources (books, sites) and take it from there. I know the chestnut that you are always best learning by projects and this is the approach I plan to take. I do have some ideas for things that I want to do, but if anyone has any recommendations of any great Ruby starter projects (with the focus on Rails) that would be good to hear.
