Rails is such a fast moving target that keeping totally updated books on the shelves is probably just as frustrating for the book publishers as for those wantin

Rails is such a fast moving target that keeping totally updated books on the shelves is probably just as frustrating for the book publishers as for those wanting up-to-date books. That said, the Pragmatic Programmer's book Agile Development with Rails is a pretty good intro: http://pragprog.com/titles/rails3/agile-web-development-with-rails-third-edition http://pragprog.com/titles/rails3/agile-web-development-with... But, with Rails 3 (with many changes) coming in the next few months, books are going to become outdated yet again. As for Ruby in general, the fairly recent The Ruby Programming Language (http://www.amazon.com/Ruby-Programming-Language-David-Flanagan/dp/0596516177/ http://www.amazon.com/Ruby-Programming-Language-David-Flanag...) is a pretty good intro. David Black's The Well-Grounded Rubyist (http://www.amazon.com/Well-Grounded-Rubyist-David-Black/dp/1933988657/ http://www.amazon.com/Well-Grounded-Rubyist-David-Black/dp/1...) is recent, and I'm sure a great book, as his previous (Ruby for Rails) was excellent.