Project Euler is a really good tool for getting the hang of a new language, imo. Strongly recommend it to anyone who wants an interesting project that will teach basic skills.

I actually did mean does :) Sinatra is definitely easier to understand than Rails and I agree that if the first code I had worked on with ruby was Rails instead of Sinatra I would have been pretty fucking confused (note that, at least in App Academy's case, the precourse work involves a fair amount of pure ruby). The real benefit of the bootcamps (I hope, anyway) is taking someone from saying, "okay, I can comfortably write a program, but what else do I have to know to do a real job?" and teaching the rest of the production environment and techniques, not just concepts of programming.

I think I agree with your core point, if I'm reading it correctly, that that if you aren't in a huge hurry (and ideally, even if you are), taking the time to really master the basics and understand your toolchain one piece at a time is very valuable.