Read th most recent version of this guide here http://rwdtow.stdout.in/. I have transferred it to GitHub Pages with custom domain.

Intro

This guide is born after a question "Could you write a list of all the things, that a good RoR developer should know?". I decided to expand it to a whole Ruby Web development and related “Full Stack” skills (but also limit it to "Web", as it is not about Ruby in general).

I am inspired by "PHP The Right Way" guide format (and advises). So this guide also contains sections dedicated to very important aspects of web dev, some explanation (if needed) and list of tutorial links.

Sometimes I will suggest some tools or Gems (with comparison if possible), but it is only to have a starting point. It is up to you to decide "use it or not".

Important notice. All suggestions in this guide is my personal opinion. It is not an absolute truth or a 100% best practice. I just want to suggest the best I know.

Also this guide is not complete tutorial - some clear steps like installing Ruby (via rbenv or rvm), managing dependencies via Bundler, etc. are not described due to wide coverage of these aspects in other tutorials (and there are no fatal issues regarding of e.g. how you install Ruby, if it works – that's fine).

Why not "Ruby On Rails" and not "The Right Way"?

I am glad you are asking! :)
It is not a secret that most of Ruby Web Dev came in Ruby via Rails. That is good and bad simultaneously. It simplifies the entry barrier, but also narrows knowledge range. This guide have special RoR section to cover some RoR-specific things, but mostly it will encourage you to look outside of Ruby on Rails and especially “Rails Way”. And I can't call the way described here as "The Right Way". It is just another way to look on common things.

Manifesto

• Prefer simple solutions (Occam's razor)
• Configuration over Confusion
• Boilerplate over Magic