#coderpath

Nothing whatsoever comes close to plodding away on your computer and learning Rails by doing.

Playing around with code snippets in your IRB console, working along with Hartl's Rails Tutorial and taking a stab at your own basic Rails programs is hands-down the best way to learn programming with Ruby on Rails (or so I'm told by those people who actually know Ruby on Rails).

That aside, I am trying to jumpstart my knowledge and accelerate my learning by taking a more immersive approach.

I recently mentioned that I'm reading Peter Cooper's Beginning Ruby. I read this book whenever I'm in a situation where I cannot sit in front of a computer with an internet connection for an extended period of time. This typically occurs during my morning and evening commutes between NYC and New Jersey. (Why I'm commuting in the first place is a whole other story, but I digress.)

My point is, don't sacrifice the time you could spend "doing" Rails, by just reading about it. Read about it when you are in a situation where doing is not an option.

Well, what about when reading about it isn't an option either? We're supposed to be drowning ourselves in Rails knowledge, right?! What about when you're exercising or driving your car or don't have a free hand for a 5-pound text-book?

For times like those, I listen to Ruby and Rails podcasts. I've tried out a few of them thus far, and will mention two that I like here. I'll add a few more down the line as I discover them.

The first one that I'd like to mention is Coderpath hosted by Miles Forrest and Curtis McHale. These guys are really comfortable in front of a microphone and have interviewed a slew of great guests including DHH himself. Listening to Coderpath feels like you're sitting in a room with a bunch of people who have been doing this stuff for years and absolutely love it. Their enthusiasm really comes across and makes it a breeze to listen to and absorb.

Their interviews and conversations are a real "who's who" in the world of Rails, and serve as a nice overview of many of the most well-known tools and applications. This is not meant to be something that will outright teach you how to code, but it will certainly help to familiarize you with the Rails community and some of its most widely used tools.

The second podcast that I'd like to mention is Learning Rails with Michael Slater and Christopher Haupt. Unlike Coderpath, Learning rails is more of a "how to" with regards to Rails. In fact, their 8-episode Podcast series is meant to serve as the intro to their free online Rails course which they offer on their site.

In addition to the 8 podcasts, they have 14 screencasts which make up the course itself. I have not watched these yet, but will once I finish Hartl's tutorial. These 8 podcasts really serve as a sound overview of how Ruby on Rails works, taught in a fairly straightforward manner.

Obviously just listening to these will not result in you being an instant Ruby developer, but hearing the material as presented from a different perspective can be helpful to having it all make sense. I've listened to the whole thing through twice now during my morning jogs, and it has certainly helped to familiarize myself with many of the core concepts and terminology used throughout the tutorial.

So there you have it. Coderpath and Learning Rails. Both are free and certainly worth checking out. Let me know what you think.