Having overseen ~100 beginners, who didn't know how to code, evolve into rails developers, I can faithfully say the following: 1) Beginners need to listen to o

Having overseen ~100 beginners, who didn't know how to code, evolve into rails developers, I can faithfully say the following: 1) Beginners need to listen to one person's opinion and trust them 2) Learning about the people and community around your tools is paramount. #2 will allow them to advance past whichever stack #1 places them. There are, of course, other caveats. For example, when a beginner finds an answer to their question on stack overflow, but the example code uses HAML instead of ERB, they need to have a foundation deep enough that allows them to at least recognize the code without feeling lost (or use those "lost" moments as opportunities to educated them about that feeling, which is rather normal for a beginner in anything). Etc.