I banged out a YouTube clone with user registration and voting for an intranet in less than a month after knowing nothing about Rails using the exact methods the author is talking about.
Sure it was no showcase example of Rails development but it works and people love it (it's been a few year now and to be honest, I've only made minor changes since).
Edit: I did have years of programming experience beforehand, but not in a language like Ruby or a framework like Rails. It was at times, mind-bending. I think the key difficulty was combating presumptions.
Okay, learning Rails with years of programming experience under your belt is in no way comparable to learning how to program (hate "code" as a verb) from scratch. Even if all you ever did was write device drivers in MIPS assembly, you're at a huge advantage over someone who has to wrap their head around what the heck a while loop or an assignment statement is.
Sure it was no showcase example of Rails development but it works and people love it (it's been a few year now and to be honest, I've only made minor changes since).
Edit: I did have years of programming experience beforehand, but not in a language like Ruby or a framework like Rails. It was at times, mind-bending. I think the key difficulty was combating presumptions.