- Have a breakable toy side Rails project. It anchors your learning. Apply new skills/techniques here.
- Put the code in Github. Give mentors access to the project. They'll review your code.
- Understand the code review process and other style guidelines.
- Deploy your breakable toy to Heroku.
- Set learning goals weekly (e.g. X chapters of the Pickaxe, X Railscasts/week).
- Keep a text document (using vim) to record interesting commands/concepts/things you've learned.
- Review the text document daily for comprehension.
- Use a Mac OS X laptop. Set it up using this script and these dotfiles.
- Practice touch typing using this game.
- Learn command line basics.
- Learn git basics with this quick tutorial.
- Learn Test-Driven Development.
- Read this example of outside-in TDD with Cucumber and RSpec.
- Read The RSpec Book to deeply understand testing with Ruby.
- Refer to this cheat sheet when you need a quick command.
- Read the Postgres manual 1 chapter at a time for deep understanding.
- Complete vimtutor.
- Sign up for Boston Ruby mailing list.
- Attend Boston Ruby events.
- Find other hackfests, conferences, etc. and show up to 1/week