So, you’ve finished a few Rails tutorials. You might have taken a class or two or watched some screencasts. You’ve followed along and built a copy of some tutorial apps. It’s pretty clear that it’s time to move to the next level in your Rails development.
Somehow, though, you’re stuck. There are tons of books, classes, and videos for people just starting out. But where are all the tutorials for intermediate Rails devs?
It’s not like it was before
Once you pass the beginner, “building baseline knowledge” stage of being a Rails developer, the resources dry up. Why is that?
Becoming an intermediate Rails developer is nothing like being a beginner. It might seem like it’s just a little different, with some more complicated stuff to learn. But passing through the intermediate stage of learning is a totally separate process.
Don’t think of it as, “A beginner knows this stuff. An intermediate developer knows all that stuff a little better, plus some extra things off to the sides.” For an intermediate developer, learning is more focused. Instead of knowing a little about a lot, you’ll learn a lot about a little.
Find a few areas to focus on. Learn more details about testing and TDD. Learn a few of the design patterns that Rails encourages, in depth. Learn about how you should design a great data model. But don’t learn it all at once. Learn one thing at a time, and learn it really well.
Once you understand the Rails basics, you’ll know enough to read API documentation, even if you don’t understand all of it yet. You could read the best books on TDD, even if they’re not written specifically for Rails. After you’ve seen enough examples of Ruby code, you can go source-diving and understand parts of Rails at a level that few others do.
When you concentrate on learning one thing well, there are many more resources to learn from. And each thing you learn will make every other thing easier to learn.
(If it seems easy for people to pick up their third or fourth language, this is one reason for it. A lot of the core concepts stay the same, which means there’s a lot less you have to learn to travel through the intermediate stage in a new language).
How do you choose what to play with next?
If you’re going to learn one thing at a time, you have to choose what to focus on first. But how do you pick, when there’s so much to learn?
Doesn’t it always seem easier to learn something when you’re interested in it? It definitely does for me. So, what’s the best way to force yourself to be interested in learning something new?
Write your own apps! Lots and lots of apps. Write apps, modify apps, add features to existing apps.
When you write an app, you will get stuck. You’ll get stuck a lot. But that’s a great thing! You should learn to love the stuckness, because it means you’re about to learn something new. Being stuck is awesome, and the more you can enjoy it, and even seek it out, the faster you’ll become an expert.
Once you research, learn, and write a solution, try to do it again in another app. Try to write it without looking at the documentation. Really learn it. Then, continue building your app, and watch for the next place you get stuck.
I love learning this way, because you get to focus on the stuff you’re going to run into most often. You’ll learn faster, because you’re not just studying to study. You’re trying to figure out how to solve a problem. And isn’t that why you fell in love with software development to begin with?
But you can’t get them all this way
After you understand the basics of Rails, you can learn serendipitously. If you understand what intermediate and expert Rails devs are talking about, you can accidentally run into conversations that will take your studying down really interesting paths.
So, when I get past the beginning, tutorial stage of learning something new, I subscribe to a bunch of blogs. I follow some of the leaders of the community on twitter. I subscribe to the WhateverWeekly newsletter for the language (RubyWeekly, iOS Dev Weekly, JavascriptWeekly, etc.).
You don’t have to read it all. You shouldn’t read it all. But let good stuff hit your radar, and try to read and follow the things that seem interesting. I’ve learned some really great tips this way, and they’ve led me into some useful topics I might not have encountered until much later.
So, what are you going to learn next?
If you’re feeling stuck because you can’t find great intermediate resources, take control of your learning. Start building an app, and pay attention to how you build it. Try something you’re only halfway sure will actually work, and seek out places you can get stuck. Use that stuckness, and find API docs, guides, or tutorials on just that small part. Go source-diving if you need to. (It might feel weird at first, but the more you look at Rails code, the more comfortable you’ll feel with it).
Really understand a small part, become an expert in it. And then, move on to the next thing.