None of it is going to come easy. Especially if you have no programming background. I am in the same position as you right now. I know HTML and CSS but the real programming has come a little bit slower. My two cents: skip TDD off the bat. Concentrate on building small apps and following tutorials to do so. Have you checked out rails for zombies? I was actually wondering some similar things about TDD myself and asked this question earlier today:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4376527

Just keep in mind, learning Rails isn't going to be something you can do in just a couple or even a few months. To become good at it you'll have to practice day in and day out for years. But the good thing about it is, you will be able to deploy simple apps with minimal knowledge very soon which is fun!

My favorite tutorial thus far has been Michael Hartl's at http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial-book

It's long but it's very informative and walks you through rspec if you do decide to use that. Best of luck!

I absolutely agree with you on Michael Hartl's tutorial. Now I am going through Rails for Zombies. I am searching for some open source rails apps which will give me a simple framework to start with.

When you say sample framework, I assume you want a minimal sample application to start from? What kind, specifically were you looking for? There are blog apps, to-do list apps, micro-blogs, etc that are all pretty simply...

I am looking for an app where the app will have users where users can be searched according to zip code or state. Users can create their profile with their expertise and people can rate their services etc.

You should take a look at Railscasts.

Given what you're looking to do: Geocoding gem: http://railscasts.com/episodes/273-geocoder Devise gem: http://railscasts.com/episodes/209-devise-revised

The former uses the google maps api to handle geocoding but you could use it as well to figure out the distance between two points. You could also use the great circle formula yourself if you know the lat and long of both points (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great-circle_distance).

The latter is one of his pro episodes but if you don't mind watching semi-dated material and picking up the rest from docs you could watch the original episode.

I find the railscasts to be extremely helpful when it comes to understanding both what's available to the rails community (lots of gem coverage) and unique ways to deal with common problems.

Thanks timo614. This is a very helpful piece of information. Will be subscribing to railscast soon.

My advice would be to use the included test frameworks if RSpec isn't a fit. Anything besides those two options will be likely to be less documented (or more rough) than appropriate for a beginner.

Great suggestion. Thanks

I learnt RSpec and Cucumber with the RSpec book, it's great