Web
It is a shame that many developers do not understand the fundamentals of web development. We are creating web apps without even knowing how the Internet (or the web) works. That’s why junior developers do not understand what params are and what triggers the different types of HTTP requests. The result is that often a junior developer has a weak foundation in fundamental web principles and largely understands programming as some sort of magic. Unfortunately, with a rails-centric education in programming, a junior developer relies more on the “magic” of rails than an understanding of programming.
If you feel confident in your basic web knowledge and want to dive deeper in all aspects, read the free ebook High-Performance Browser Networking.
This book provides a hands-on overview of what every web developer needs to know about the various types of networks (WiFi, 3G/4G), transport protocols (UDP, TCP, and TLS), application protocols (HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2), and APIs available in the browser (XHR, WebSocket, WebRTC, and more) to deliver the best, fast, reliable, and resilient—user experience.
Linux
A lot of us come to web development with Windows desktops. But even if Ruby can be installed on Windows, I recommend using a Linux/Unix based machine for Ruby development. Either a machine running a dedicated Linux/Unix OS or a virtual machine running Linux/Unix in Windows works just fine. The world of web servers (VPS) is all about Linux, so it is a good idea to be very familiar with Linux and be able to perform basic Linux tasks, performance tuning, and advanced web server setup for your application within a Linux environment.
IDE
You can write Ruby code in any text editor, but using a more sophisticated IDE increases productivity.
Editors like SublimeText and Atom require some additional plugin setup
The most full-featured IDE is RubyMine, but it is not free. Due to the dynamic nature of Ruby, it is hard for IDEs to do correct autocompletion most of the time. This is why RubyMine is not as powerful as similar IDEs for other languages, but it still provides quite a lot of additional integrated tools.