So I have a project – which I guess can be considered a relatively ‘large-ish’ project, that I want to build.
However, I am completely new to Rails. I am intimately familiar with UX & front-end development, but dealing with the back-end is new to me. I really want to learn though, and I remember DHH famously saying that the best way to learn is just to do it.
However, I was recently speaking to an experienced Rails developer and he said it might be better to build smaller projects – so I can learn in shorter durations and not get discouraged. Then I spoke to another experienced Rails developer and he said that there is something to be said about jumping in the deep end.
So what do you guys think? What are the pros and cons of both?
Jumping in at the deep end is fine if you know enough to plan your project carefully. If you don’t know anything about MVC architecture, you will probably have a really hard time planning out the database and program elements you need to get from point A to Z.
Properly planned, you can do a project by creating successive (fully functional) iterations with each one a step toward completely fulfilling your requirements. For example, with a blog you could first build a system for entering posts into your DB, then build a display function, then build tagging, then build commenting, etc.
If you don’t know anything about Rails and don’t know MVC, then at least a couple of tutorial level projects will be real helpful for getting you familiar with the environment and the architecture concept.