Exactly my experience. I started learning web development, specifically Rails, some time ago and did all the usual tutorials, like Michael Hartl's. However it

Exactly my experience. I started learning web development, specifically Rails, some time ago and did all the usual tutorials, like Michael Hartl's. However it only started to really click when I was faced with actual real world problems and was able to solve them slowly, but one after another. We needed a simple product catalog (no ecommerce yet) with syncing capabilities from our internal FileMaker system and that small project has turned out to be the most valuable learning experience on my ongoing path of mastering Rails.