If you’re completely new to programming and Ruby on Rails, we recommend you check out the Rails Girls Guide to building your first app.
Also part of the workshop curriculum, many of us have enjoyed using Try Ruby to get better acquainted with ruby syntax.
If you’ve attended a workshop or have a little bit of experience and aren’t sure where to go next, you might be interested in Learn Ruby the Hard Way and Michael Hartl’s Rails Tutorial.
Learn Ruby the Hard Way assumes no prior programming knowledge but the challenges get more rigorous as they build on each other. Try it out, you might be surprised how quick you catch on!
Michael Hartl’s Rails Tutorial is a very thorough guide which walks you through building a twitter clone Rails application from start to finish, including “Red, Green, Refactor” testing methodology.
There are some great tutorials on how to implement specific features and even full applications listed on Jumpstart Lab’s Site. Avdi Grimm’s Ruby Tapas are screenscasts that quickly walkthrough ruby concepts in small digestible videos. It’s always fun to go through a tutorial and then try to implement it with your own ideas included!
Practicing Ruby often can help you remember what you learned and make you think of new ways to solve problems. Ruby Koans focus on Ruby’s syntax & structure through semi-guided instruction files.
Project Euler is a set of challenging math problems that can be solved using many different programming languages. They might seem difficult on first glance but they require you to break down problems into small pieces before starting, which is a great way to practice writing any code!
There are a lot of very well written books about Ruby, but one that stands out as a great beginner guide is the Humble Little Ruby Book which is available in print or online for free!
Get Excited & Build Things!