I created this site as a way for people to post errors, get responses, and learn in general. I have been a sysadmin in some sort of capacity for going on 10 years now and am just getting around to tackling being a programmer. Currently I have some shell scripting experience but overall I am just not a programmer. I doubt this will get many responses right away since the site is so new but I wanted feedback on what peoples opinion on the path someone should take to become a programmer. I am mad at myself for not jumping into this earlier but better late than never. I have decided to learn using Ruby and technically Ruby on Rails.
Any tips, books, info, etc. that people can provide to assist me with my goal will be appreciated. The first book I have chosen to completely read through is Learn to Program(The Pragmatic Press) by Chris Pine.
Just a follow up. I am still working on learning Ruby though it is not going as quickly as I would like. One thing I am going to do to help out is get an iPod touch so I can listen to podcasts when I am traveling. There are a ton of cool looking podcasts available for Ruby.
I would highly recommend the 3rd of Agile Web Development when it comes out. But since you don’t have a programming background, I would run this 15 minute Ruby tutorial:
http://tryruby.hobix.com/
It’s cool because you can try ruby code without logging onto a server or launching iRb