I don't know much about Ruby On Rails, the open-source framework which allows you to develop Web applications. Fortunately, walking the halls of the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, I ran into someone who does, and he's offering a free online course where you can learn about it for yourself.

The person to whom I refer is Michael Slater, who used to run the well-respected Microprocessor Report newsletter back in the pre-bubble 1990s, when I was writing for EETimes. Slater went off to found a digital-photo startup, which was later sold to Adobe. Michael then spend six years at that venerable software firm, before taking time off to do a deep dive into a technology which really excited him.

That'd be Ruby On Rails. Slater told me that his interest in creating a start-up around Ruby stemmed from his perception that, not only is this a great technology, but the market is really underserved in terms of providing easy access to information about how to use this stuff.

Slater's go-to-market strategy is two-fold. He's posted lots of free, how-to information, as well as info on that free course I mentioned, at his site, BuildingWebApps.com. He's also attempting to build a business around hosting services for Ruby On Rails applications.

Like I said at the outset, I don't know too much about Ruby myself, so I pulled out my little video camera and asked Slater to give me the for-dummies quick course. See if you don't find it as interesting as I did. Here's the video:

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