Ruby on Rails

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one.  I'm an operations manager for a natural food manufacturer who through his working career discovered a love for databases (i really like to normalize data - if you have some data needs, let me know) and after a bunch of fits and starts with asp, php, etc...i finally (at 40) found ruby and ruby on rails.  It's tough going because of the amount of hours I work but it helps to know there are others out there.

I learned ruby first using various tutorials, ruby the hard way is an excellent free online resource, the pragmatic video course is always good, as was pines programming book from the pragmatic book shelf.  For Rails I'm trying to get through Hartl's tutorial again (about a year ago I got halfway through but left it off for a variety of reasons and needed to start over).  I have built some ruby apps that download and parse nba information from ESPN.com (but not perfectly - nees some tweaking beyond me) but I find the biggest issue is finding something to build for a portfolio.

One person of advice is that i'd avoid the agile rails book from pragmatic - they use scaffolds - i don't like scaffolds and feel they create more code than you need if you really know what you're doing. 

I have lots of web site ideas but most of them are 'complex' ideas - does anyone have any suggestion on a good 'first project' idea?  I mean even when i get into designing a more robust blog system I get bogged down in threaded replies, and the idea of formatting text with an easy editor - my brain won't stop thinking ahead.

If there's any other career switchers out there like this maybe we could form our own little 'group' to help each other out? 
On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 11:54:56 AM UTC-7, Ruby-Forum.com User wrote:

Hello All,

I'm currently working in the medical equipment research and development
industry and I'm looking to switch industries to become a Rails
developer. I've been focusing on getting to know Ruby for the past
couple months and am feeling fairly comfortable with it. I want to start
moving on and start on Rails now, but want some people's opinions on
where to start.

How'd you all get started?
Did any of you switch industries in to Rails development?

I'd be very interested in talking to someone who did switch industries
successfully after studying Ruby/Rails independently. I'm a quick
learner so picking up all these languages isn't a problem and just takes
time, but I would really like some advice on how to reach that end goal
of actually landing a job as a Rails developer (freelance work, where I
should be before I START looking for freelance jobs, developing a Rails
portfolio, etc.).

Seeing someone else's Rails portfolio would be a huge help!

Thanks in advance!

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