Let's Learn Ruby a resource list

Hi! This road map has helped me as a second-career developer who didn’t do a bootcamp. I hope it helps you too.

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Table of contents

Basics
Foundational tools
Advanced Ruby and Rails
- Advanced Rails
Front end
Expanding my horizons
Programming games
Ruby media
Rails codebases to study
- Small codebases
- Larger codebases

🔗 Basics

🔗 Front-end basics

Learn some HTML, CSS, and JS

The Odin Project - Foundations path or resources under “Front end” below.
Build a blog from scratch

GitHub Pages is an accessible way to do this. (Choose the option “Project site”, then “Start from scratch”.).

🔗 Ruby basics

🔗 Basics

The Odin Project - Ruby
GoRails - Ruby for Beginners

If you prefer videos.
Try Ruby

And BigBinary Academy, if you like an interactive approach.

🔗 Guided practice

Exercism - Ruby

🔗 OOP (object-oriented programming)

🔗 Build stuff with Ruby

A CLI (command-line interface) app

I made one that gives statistics on a reading log.
A game

A text-based game is the most straightforward option, but there are Ruby game engines for graphical games.
A static site

Bridgetown is great for (among other things) building static sites, which are simpler than SSR (server-side rendered) sites à la Rails. Maybe rebuild your blog? Be sure to join the Bridgetown Discord server—the maintainers are very welcoming and helpful to newbies.
More ideas

Coding Challenges, Build your own X, Projectbook, Project-based learning.

🔗 Reference

Ruby API

Mentioning it up here because it’s the best Ruby docs site but very little-known. Since its search uses a query param, you can add a search keyword to your browser to let you quickly search from the address bar, for example rb partition would take you to https://rubyapi.org/3.4/o/s?q=partition.

🔗 Rails basics

🔗 Basics

GoRails - Build a Blog with Rails 7

And if you want more along the same lines, Rails 6 for Beginners.
The Odin Project - Rails

🔗 Testing

thoughtbot - Testing Rails

Or the summary blog post. (In the book, ignore controller specs because they have been superseded by request specs.).
💲 Effective Testing with RSpec 3

🔗 Misc

Explore Ruby communities (below)
Style guides

For Ruby, Rails, and RSpec.

🔗 Getting hired

🔗 Get real-world experience to put on your resume

Contribute to open-source projects

I’ve written a short guide on how to get started.
Ruby Central - Scholars and Guides Program

🔗 Mentorship

First Ruby Friend

Where aspiring and first-year developers are connected with a mentor.
r/rails

It’s worth trying too. Examples: 1, 2.

🔗 The job search

🔗 Foundational tools

🔗 SQL

🔗 Basics

🔗 Git

🔗 Basics

🔗 How the Internet works

💲 Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach

🔗 Advanced Ruby and Rails

🔗 Advanced Rails

🔗 Reference

💲 Rebuilding Rails

🔗 Architecture

💲 Layered Design for Ruby on Rails Applications

🔗 Front end

🔗 HTML and CSS

🔗 Community

The Spicy Web (Discord)

🔗 JavaScript

🔗 Basics

🔗 Going deeper

You Don't Know JS Yet

Be sure to read the last three parts after they’re finished.

🔗 HTML-first JS libraries

i-html

For HTML over the wire. Also, read Hypermedia Systems and/or watch Return To Hypermedia: Solving Javascript Fatigue Using Fundamental Web Architecture, by the creator of htmx (a similar library that is larger and better-known).
Alpine.js

Add Alpine AJAX for functionality like i-html/htmx.

🔗 UI and usability

🔗 Learning

🔗 Libraries

Pico CSS
Shoelace

Soon to be superseded by Web Awesome.

🔗 Expanding my horizons

🔗 Be a mentor

Exercism

🔗 Career advancement

Engineering progression for humans

🔗 Design patterns

🔗 My other lists

Learn Computer Science and Low-Level Programming
Learn Roc

A functional programming language.

🔗 Programming games

🔗 API games (any language)

🔗 Ruby games

SC2AI
Ruby Warrior

Or the online version.

🔗 JavaScript/TypeScript games

🔗 CSS games

🔗 Other programming games

Swarm

🔗 Ruby media

r/ruby

And r/rails.
Ruby (Discord)
Ruby.social (Mastodon)
Ruby on Rails Link (Slack)
Lobsters

It’s not Ruby-specific, but it’s a way to widen your horizons and the discussions are of high quality. It’s like Hacker News but smaller and more focused on programming.

🔗 Newsletters

🔗 Blogs

🔗 "Let's build" screencasts

🔗 Topical screencasts

🔗 Streams

🔗 Podcasts

Bike Shed
Code and the Coding Coders who Code it
Code with Jason
Friendly Show
Fullstack Ruby
IndieRails
Maintainable
Rails Changelog
Remote Ruby
Rooftop Ruby
Rubber Duck Dev Show
Ruby for All
Ruby on Rails Podcast

Especially starting at episode 372 went they went independent, brought on co-hosts, and hired an editor.
Ruby Rogues
Tightly Coupled Book Club
YAGNI

🔗 Rails codebases to study

🔗 Small codebases

github.com/onerinas/whatwentwelltoday

<2k lines. An app to share daily positivity.
github.com/krschacht/37signals-rails-code

<2k lines. Extracts from the Basecamp and Hey codebases.
github.com/nshki/naisho

<2k lines. Send personal data deletion request emails to hundreds of data brokers at once.
github.com/carsoncole/workypad

2k lines. App for managing job prospecting.
once.com/writebook

3k lines. App for publishing books to the web.
github.com/ChaelCodes/MeetAnotherDay

4k lines. Helps you find and meet up with your friends at conferences.
github.com/SpinaCMS/Spina

5k lines. CMS (Content Management System).
github.com/docusealco/docuseal

6k lines. Open source DocuSign alternative.
github.com/codetriage/codetriage

6k lines. Issue tracker for open-source projects.
github.com/maybe-finance/maybe

8k lines. Personal finance app.
github.com/demingfactor/calagator

9k lines. Community calendar platform.
github.com/joemasilotti/railsdevs.com

12k lines. The reverse job board for Ruby on Rails developers.
github.com/RailsEventStore/ecommerce

12k lines. Example app showing DDD (Domain-Driven Design), CQRS, and Event Sourcing.
github.com/AllYourBot/hostedgpt

12k lines. Self-hosted ChatGPT alternative.
github.com/TheOdinProject/theodinproject

12k lines. Main website for The Odin Project web development learning platform.
github.com/lobsters/lobsters

13k lines. Hacker News clone.
github.com/thoughtbot/upcase

14k lines. Learning platform for developers.
github.com/CircuitVerse/CircuitVerse

15k lines. Digital logic circuit simulator. Has a Vue.js front end.
github.com/houndci/hound

14k lines. Automated code review for GitHub PRs.
github.com/chicago-tool-library/circulate

17k lines. A lending library management system.
github.com/rubyforgood/homeward-tails

19k lines. Connects adopters/fosters with pets.
github.com/ifmeorg/ifme

21k lines. Mental health communication web app to share experiences with loved ones.
github.com/openSUSE/osem

25k lines. Event management tool tailored to Free and Open Source Software conferences.
github.com/feedbin/feedbin

25k lines. RSS reader.
github.com/rubygems/rubygems.org

26k lines. Where Ruby gems are hosted.
github.com/huginn/huginn

36k lines. Web task automation.
github.com/AlchemyCMS/alchemy_cms

36k lines. CMS (Content Management System).
github.com/rubyforgood/casa

37k lines. Volunteer management system for the nonprofit CASA.
github.com/rubyforgood/human-essentials

39k lines. An inventory management system for essentials supply banks.
github.com/SumOfUs/Champaign

39k lines. Digital campaigning platform. A Rails app generator.

🔗 Larger codebases

github.com/WikiEducationFoundation/WikiEduDashboard

50k lines. Wikipedia course dashboard system. Has a React front end.
github.com/chatwoot/chatwoot

56k lines. Customer engagement suite. Has a Vue.js front end.
github.com/solidusio/solidus

72k lines. E-commerce platform.
github.com/mastodon/mastodon

75k lines. Like Twitter but self-hosted and federated.
github.com/openfoodfoundation/openfoodnetwork

102k lines. An online marketplace for local food.
github.com/forem/forem

103k lines. Powers the blogging site dev.to. Uses Preact on the front end.
github.com/redmine/redmine

117k lines. Project management app.
github.com/alphagov/whitehall

117k lines. Publishes government content on gov.uk.
github.com/zammad/zammad

250k lines. Helpdesk/customer support system.
github.com/decidim/decidim

288k lines. The participatory democracy framework.
github.com/discourse/discourse

322k lines. Discussion forum platform. Has an Ember.js front end.
github.com/opf/openproject

368k lines. Project management software.
github.com/instructure/canvas-lms

745k lines. A popular LMS (learning management system).
gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab

1.8 million lines. Like GitHub but with CI/CD and DevOps features built in. Uses Vue.js on the front end. Has great docs on architecture.