“I started my Rails app. But I had no idea where to start building.”

Creating a new Rails app is easy: it’s just rails new, right? But what’s next? Where do you start? Should you write some tests, or build some scaffolds? Start with the views, or make some ActiveRecord models? Soon, you get lost. You procrastinate, and you can hardly look at your barely-started Rails app. And you give up.

You know what you want to build – so why can’t you build it?

Imagine, though, if you always knew exactly how to start, and what you should build next. If you could finish your app, without spending months (or even years!) torturing yourself by avoiding it. If you could confidently balance the time you spend testing and the time you spend building. And how to put it all together into an app you’d be proud to call yourself the author of.

Instead of Stack Overflow-ing until things kind of work, you could understand what you needed to do, and why, and apply it to your own apps.

In my free 7-part email course, you’ll learn a simple process that will take you through the first steps for starting your new app. You’ll find a path to mastering testing and TDD and learn how to save time by using quality gems. You’ll discover how to answer your own Rails questions, so you can spend less time deciding which Stack Overflow answer will actually fix your problem. And by the end, you’ll learn techniques that will keep you from ever being overwhelmed by Rails again.

As a bonus, when you register, you’ll get the first chapter of Practicing Rails, where you’ll learn the fastest way to master new programming ideas, absolutely free.

Don’t miss out. Join the 4,000+ people who’ve been helped by this course.

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What’s included?

After you sign up, you’ll receive a short lesson in your inbox every few days. In those lessons, you’ll learn things like:

  • What to do after you run rails new
  • How to learn TDD, without being overwhelmed
  • How to build your next feature, guided by tests
  • How do you finish anything, when you want to build everything?
  • A guide to choosing the best gems for your Rails app
  • How to keep Rails questions from killing your productivity
  • The best way to fight being overwhelmed by Rails

Who am I?

I'm Justin Weiss, a software engineer at Aha!. I first found Ruby in 2004, and it's been my favorite language ever since. Ruby brought the joy of programming back to me after years of Java, and I'll always love it for that.

I've written a few popular Ruby gems, including robut and resque_unit, and I've contributed to many more.

I live in Seattle, WA with my beautiful wife and two daughters.

I'd love to hear from you, so you should send me an email or follow me on Mastodon.