I disagree. The concept of Railstutorial is to show how industrial strength rails programming is done (heck, Michael even adds indices to enforce uniqueness of

I disagree. The concept of Railstutorial is to show how industrial strength rails programming is done (heck, Michael even adds indices to enforce uniqueness of the database level), so for an absolute beginner it is much better to do some ruby first (Pine's learn to program is best imo) and start with a rails book that does not bombast you with rspec and cucumber.