Completely begginer on programming

Hi guys!

I´ve just heard about Rails. It seems really good and I would like to know if anyone could give a tip about how to start programming on Rails.

Important: it should be something focused on beginners. Although I can program some HTML and JavaScript, I have no experience on backend programming at all.

I work for Wunderman Brazil as Project Manager (currently managing web projects for Nokia on LatAm) and I do not plan to be a expert programmer, I just want to a more in-depth vision of what Rails is about, and maybe do some simple programming for my own (and small) websites.

Any tip for an unexperienced programmer? Could be a website, a forum, anything.

Thanks a lot in advance.

Best regards, Reano

Go and Buy the following,

Simply Rails 2 by Patrick Lenz

Agile Web Development with Rails, Third Edition by the Pragmatic Programmmers (Is only a pdf right now but you get the book when its published too)

http://railscasts.com/ - Though a lot of the stuff on there is for pre v2.0

and ask questions here and at http://railsforum.com/

they all helped me to get going...

I recommend everything he said, and then add The Art of Rails as well as just a generally good book to read about Rails. Also, don't forget about looking at some Ruby books too in order to brush up on those skills.

Most of all, after working on-and-off with Rails for I think almost two years now, don't give up and keep reading. I have a small library of Ruby and Rails books and I can't understand 3/4s of it, but I keep on finding little things in each new book to add to my "bag of tricks." Plus, I'll look at the books later and know more and learn more. It is a wonderful cycle.

I recommend the Lynda screencast series for RoR... Several episodes are no longer compatible with Rails 2.x, but I found working around those incompatibilities to be a good learning experience in debegging and troubleshooting.

If you're starting without much background the screencasts walk through alot of detail that isn't covered in other screencasts or tutorials.

SH

this is a tough one, reano, because before learning rails you must learn ruby and before that you must learn object orientation programming. i learned java before ruby and i thought that i could use rails from the start, but only after reading a ruby book i could figure out how rails work.

Thanks a lot for all answers.

s Reano