$&#62; rails myproject &#38;&#38; cd myproject<p>$&#62; script/generate scaffold item name:string description:text<p>$&#62; rake db:migrate<p>$&#62; script/console<p>&#62;&#62; item = Item.new({:name =&#62; "thing", :description =&#62; "blah"})<p>&#62;&#62; item.save!<p>&#62;&#62; Item.first<p>That's a start.  The console helps quite a lot if you just want to play around with Ruby or any of the Rails modules.  The list that carbon8 posted is a great start as well, and explains all the different aspects of the framework, etc.<p>I'm a fan of Rails and Ruby.  Also, I recommend maybe switching out my "scaffold" example, installing the rspec gems, and doing "rspec_scaffold" instead.  It's a good idea to get used to a testing framework if you're going to be involved in a significantly scoped project.<p>Enjoy!