Rails Engage!

Happy new year.

1. I have a friend who wants to learn how to code.
2. She has an app in mind that she wants to create.
3. One of my goals for the new year is to write more technical blog posts.

We also live pretty far apart — I live in New York and she lives in my home state of South Carolina (at least, for now). I think one of the best ways to help her make her app is to write blog posts explaining some of the concepts that were new to me when I was learning how to code. Ruby on Rails is one of the easiest frameworks to learn for a couple of reasons: it teaches you the core concepts of programming for the web, Ruby is one of the easiest languages to learn as a beginner (if not the easiest), and Rails is robust enough to get a fully functioning application off the ground in the matter of a few weeks, even for people new to coding. And it’s just easier for me to write if I can pretend like I’m speaking to one person directly.

Another important note: my friend is a real Star Trek: The Next Generation nerd, so if you see an obtuse amount of TNG references and gifs on this blog in the near future… that is why.

Here’s the rough framework I will use to explain how to make an app while keeping it general enough for anyone (and obviously subject to change).

1. Environment setup 1.5 Scoping
2. rails generate (What are these files?)
3. Eaten by 2
4. MVC
5. Working with an API
6. Logic
7. Front-end
8. How to deploy

Engage!