Rails is great for building web apps. But it can be quite overwhelming if you don't know how web applications work.

In this course, we'll build a simple but complete app in plain Ruby without Rails, to get a deeper understanding and appreciation of everything Rails does for us. Finally, we will deploy it to a web server, which will give you a good understanding of the deployment process for Ruby-based web applications, including Rails.

We will start with a very simple Ruby script, but progress quickly to add various features like routing, controllers, models, and views.

At the end of the course, you will have a fully-functioning web application written in Ruby. Finishing this course will give you a great foundation to learn Rails.