Rails Development Tracks

Hey Salman, I'll answer your questions in order to the best of my ability. :)

1. For what it's worth, I feel like going through the Rails Development Track was time well spent. I felt like I was climbing a pretty steep hill most of the time, but even the trouble I ran into taught me a lot. Yes, it's outdated a bit, but I think the core concepts are still relevant and worth going through. You can supplement by using outside material as well.

2. Probably a really long time. I always try to assume it'll take a very long time to become "pro" at anything, then you surprise yourself when you start getting pretty good and you'll always be trying to learn new things.

3. I'm not sure about this one, but I imagine if you're even moderately good at doing things with Rails, you can figure out a way to make it work.

4. I personally feel like the portfolio site itself shouldn't have too many bells and whistles and that showcasing your skills should be done using individual projects. Of course, you might come up with a really cool concept for your portfolio and want to use Rails. Then by all means, go for it. :) I just wouldn't worry about that too much until you get pretty good. Start basic first and just get a portfolio up. You can add links to projects as you make them, and then probably one day you'll want to rework the whole thing.

As for resources, I heard The Well-Grounded Rubyist is fantastic and I intend on getting it myself. Also, this Ruby on Rails Tutorial book has been recommended as well. If you're more of an interactive kind of guy, just look for online tutorials and do them all. Repeating some of the same concepts can only help.

Hope some of that helps. Rails is rough, but it'll get easier the longer you stick with it. Just know that everyone pretty much agrees that the learning curve is incredibly steep so it's normal to feel like it's a complicated process.

Side note: Don't even get into NodeJS yet if you're wanting to do Ruby/Rails. It'll just muddle up your learning. It looks like you've done a lot of JavaScript content here, so if you're wanting to look into NodeJS, you might want to do that first to keep your focus on JavaScript. Unless you want to abandon that and totally focus on Ruby and everything that comes with it. I'd focus on one or the other.