| This says it much better than I can: How to Build a Web Site from Scratch with No Experience (http://lifehacker.com/5336113/how-to-build-a-web-site-from-s...) It details how the author built mixtape.me starting with basically zero experience, and is quite worth your while. The advice below uses Rails as the framework, but will work whichever one you choose. The steps stay the same: build a basic app with help (from a book, tutorial, etc.) to understand the framework/language, start building what you want to create and learn at the same time. What I'd suggest is to obtain a copy of "Agile Web Development with Rails (4th edition)" (http://pragprog.com/titles/rails4/agile-web-development-with...). Side note: it's not published yet, so make sure you get the beta version (an e-book version, and you'll be notified of updates as content is modified/added). Then read through the book while building the example application in the book (a basic shopping website). This approach is great, because you learn by doing and you also get to glance at agile methodologies. Once you've gone through the toy app and understood it, you'll be quite proud of yourself and will be able to build simple things already. At this point, you should start to work on your own idea, it's much more motivating and you'll always learn the most when working on a "real" project. To be noted: the Rails book does assume you have passing familiarity with Ruby (or at least a programing language), HTML, etc. If you need/want to learn programming first, you should probably also get an appropriate book on the subject, such as "Learn to Program (2nd edition)" (http://pragprog.com/titles/ltp2/learn-to-program) or, if you're more advanced, the Pickaxe (http://pragprog.com/titles/ruby3/programming-ruby-1-9). Oh, and the reason I mention PragProg books isn't because I'm affiliated with them (I'm not), but because I have yet to get one of their books that doesn't live up to my expectations. |