The "best way" depends on your current skills, really. Ordered by increasing levels of programming skill, I'd say you should start with one of the following:

The "best way" depends on your current skills, really. Ordered by increasing levels of programming skill, I'd say you should start with one of the following: 1. Learn to Program by Chris Pine 2. Everyday Scripting with Ruby by Brian Marick 3. Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt An excellent book to build your skills and internalize the common Ruby idioms is The Ruby Way by Hal Fulton. As others have mentioned, Agile Web Development with Rails is The Book to use for learning Rails. Of the above, the only book I don't have in one form or another is Chris Pine's (because it is, frankly, well below my skill level). There's an online tutorial by the same name, by the same guy, that can perhaps serve as a substitute -- but the book is much more complete, so if that's suitable to your skill level, I recommend getting the book. Best o' luck! Ruby is a lot of fun.