Getting Started & Setup

Welcome to the HerNextGram tutorial! In this series, you'll learn how to build a photo-sharing app like Instagram using Ruby on Rails.

What You'll Build

By the end of this tutorial series, you'll have a fully functional Instagram-like app with:
- User authentication (sign up, login, logout)
- Photo uploads with captions
- Like and comment functionality
- User profiles with avatars
- Follow/unfollow system
- Personalized feed

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you should have:
- A computer (Mac, Windows, or Linux)
- Basic understanding of how websites work
- Enthusiasm to learn! No coding experience required.

Installing Ruby

First, we need to install Ruby on your computer.

Mac Users: Open Terminal and run: brew install ruby
Windows Users: Download from rubyinstaller.org
Linux Users: sudo apt-get install ruby-full

Installing Rails

Once Ruby is installed, run: gem install rails

Verify Installation

Check everything is working: ruby --version and rails --version

What's Next

In the next chapter, we'll create your first Rails application!