Ruby on Rails

• Get a project of your own where you are really interested in. Something which you can put passion behind. For me this was building a task app to be able to manage my tasks online. I really wanted to do this for a long time, but I did not have the skills of programming!
• Identify what your ultimate goal is and within what timeframe. For me I wanted my task app to be on the web (not on my machine)! I wanted it to be on Heroku. And it had to be done within two months from scratch. I also wanted to make little steps. Meaning I wanted to build each incremental step and not get lost on the project.
• Do it. Make sure you focus on your project and only on this project. For me I had to learn more than is thaught in the tutorials. I had to lean new tricks. So this triggered me to really search for solutions to solve my problems to get to the next step. This really brought in focus. I could not try to read and learn another tutorial. I HAD TO WORK ON MY PROJECT.
• What happened that I had to learn the basics of git. Without git you cannot get onto Heroku. I had to buy some books to learn about login in etc. I had to learn css to make my app look good. I had to learn how models get hooked to each other. I had to design my app (models etc).
• Now here is the most important tip: YOU NEED TO BE THE OWNER OF THIS PROJECT. Sorry for the capitals. You better agree with some of your friends, that you need to deliver each week or each two weeks. You have to send in some final product. So no excuses. For me this meant that I sent myself an email with the latest version of my task app by email after each big step. I also agreed with a friend of mine that he needs to get something from me. This meant also that I had a finished product each week. A finished product is like: task app with all tasks and projects working. So again a focus. The next finished product was: get the colours ready. So I needed to work on learning stylesheets.

Dear Group,

I know that this kind of question may sound not very good to you. But I just wanted to
ask you that what is the best way to become perfectly effective and professional with
good knowledge in rails.

I'm a software developer with almost 2.5-3 years of experience. a TDD, BDD and craftsmanship
enthusiast. For the past year I've been hacking some stuff in Ruby and for the past 6 months
I've been reading about rails and practicing on it. Not full time but I spent a fair amount of time
on this. I've read Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl and wrote the application completely
myself too. I also made some changes to it according to best practices of OO and separation of
concerns, etc. for faster tests, more flexibility and maintainability, etc.

I'm currently reading Rails 3 in Action by Ryan Bigg and Yehuda Katz and making some changes
to that application too for the same reasons.

I've been doing some other kinds of practice and readings on rails development too (including watching some
railscasts by Ryan Bates etc.)

I just wanted to ask you guys what should I do for becoming really effective and professional in rails development
with great knowledge in that area?

I really appreciate your helps and advice on this. Thanks in advance for your guidance.
Best Regards

--
Sam Serpoosh
Software Developer: http://masihjesus.wordpress.com
Twitter @masihjesus