Web Fundamentals for a Newb
swombat: In general, you always have to take into account the Law of Leaky Abstractions ( http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.htm... ).No matter how convenient a new abstraction might make things, it will some day "leak". If you don't know anything about the layer underneath, at that point, you're pretty shafted.Some abstractions are more leaky than others. ActiveRecord is a very leaky abstraction. Make sure you have a solid grounding in database usage, db model design, normalisation, etcAs for the web in general, your stack of abstractions reads something like: ActionController > MVC for web apps > CGI-BIN/Servlets > HTTP > TCP > IP > ...You can probably stop around HTTP or TCP and be ok.I don't think you'll find a single book that covers all that, but maybe someone will have some suggestions.Please note you don't need to become an expert at all this stuff - but you need to have a pretty good idea how it all fits together.