sit down and build a small app with it that doesnt rely on the crud framework. something like an events calendar should give worthwhile insight on setting up an

sit down and build a small app with it that doesnt rely on the crud framework. something like an events calendar should give worthwhile insight on setting up an application, working with the database orm, controllers, templates, etc. you could even sprinkle in some web service consumption on top afterwords to play around with web api interaction with your application. by this time, you should have a pretty clear of how it feels to work with rails. more importantly, you'll be able to determine whether you want to take a deep breath and inhale the hype or try something else. if you don't care for it, go back to cakephp. or codeigniter. or phreeze. or, give django a try. i tried rails when it first came out, didn't care for it, and went with django because i enjoyed python and liked how django was shaping up.