A.2. Ruby and Rails
The Ruby and Rails communities are some of the most active in the development world. Because of this, you'll find an incredible wealth of information available for free online.
This section points out only some must-see links to tutorials and other useful resources in general as you start to explore the community and what it has to offer.
A.2.1. Useful Links
Ruby on Rails homepage: http://rubyonrails.org
Ruby homepage: http://ruby-lang.org
Official Rails blog: http://weblog.rubyonrails.org
Rails source code: http://github.com/rails/rails
Rails bug tracker: http://rails.lighthouseapp.com
List of Rails plugins (and more): http://www.railslodge.com
Rails screencasts: http://railscasts.com (free) and http://peepcode.com (commercial)
Weekly Rails podcasts: http://www.railsenvy.com/podcast
Ruby and Rails documentation: http://ruby-doc.org and http://apidock.com
Working with Rails: http://www.workingwithrails.com
Ruby/Rails Open Source code hosting: http://rubyforge.org and http://github.com
Try Ruby in your browser: http://tryruby.hobix.com
Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby: http://poignantguide.net/ruby/
An absolute beginner guide to programming in Ruby: http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/
The Book of Ruby (a highly recommended, comprehensive guide): http://www.sapphiresteel.com/The-Book-Of-Ruby
A.2.2. Hosting Services
Over the years a large number of hosting companies have added support for Rails. There are virtually countless such companies at this point and listing all of them here would be unfeasible. The following companies specialize in Rails hosting. They are not the only good hosting providers, but rather companies I feel I can recommend.
Engine Yard (managed hosting): http://www.engineyard.com
Joyent (managed hosting): http://www.joyent.com
Rails Machine (VPS and dedicated): http://railsmachine.com
Planet Argon's Rails Boxcar (VPS): http://railsboxcar.com
BrightBox (VPS): http://www.brightbox.co.uk
Slicehost (VPS): http://www.slicehost.com
Linode (VPS): http://www.linode.com
Rimu Hosting (VPS): http://rimuhosting.com/rails-hosting
Morph Labs (cloud hosting): http://www.mor.ph
Heroku (cloud hosting): http://heroku.com
Web Faction (shared hosting): http://www.webfaction.com
Hosting Rails (shared hosting): http://www.hostingrails.com
Keep in mind that Rails tends to work best when more resources are available than those that are usually provided by shared hosting companies. It is recommended that you deploy Rails on beefier configurations, like those offered by the rest of the aforementioned companies. On the plus side, shared hosting is very inexpensive and the hosting company usually manages the operating system for you. Yet this type of entry-level hosting is not ideal over all, and definitely not well suited for resource-intensive applications or sites that expect to receive a fairly large amount of traffic.
A.2.3. Getting Help
One of the greatest aspects of the Ruby on Rails community is the amount of support you can get entirely for free online. Here you'll find a few places where you can direct your questions and exchange ideas with fellow rubyists:
You can get virtually instantaneous Rails support within the #rubyonrails channel on irc.freenode.net. Likewise, on the same server you can visit the #ruby-lang channel for Ruby. The #rails-contrib channel is more advanced and aimed at those who are trying to contribute to Rails' core.
Ruby on Rails Talk is a mailing list where you can post your questions and clarify any doubts you may encounter. You'll find a Web interface at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk. There's also Ruby on Rails Core (for Rails' core developers) at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-core and Ruby on Rails Security if you want to read announcements about security issues: http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-security.
For Ruby, you can check out Ruby Talk (http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/ruby/ruby-talk/index.shtml), which is mirrored for convenience on Google Groups: http://groups.google.com/group/ruby-talk-google. Alternatively, you can read all the mailing lists mentioned here in forum format at http://www.ruby-forum.com. Of course, other forums exist, and they are just a Google search away.