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Ruby on Rails is an open-source web application framework designed to make the job of the developer easier by providing everything one needs to create web-based, database-driven applications easily while focusing on the idea, not the technology behind implementing the idea. It is designed to be a marriage of the “quick-n-dirty” camp of PHP web developers and the “slow-n-clean” methodologies of the old enterprise architecture crowd. Ruby on Rails succeeds by automating the creation of the most common types of Web applications while not straightjacketing you if you want to add custom or atypical requirements. Moreover, compared to many Free Software libraries that perform individual aspects of a Web application, Rails contains a nicely integrated set of tools for all aspects.

Ruby on Rails is taking Web development by storm. Let's start with a refresher on the underlying technologies:

Ruby is the free, simple, straightforward, extensible, portable, interpreted scripting language for quick-and-easy object-oriented programming that, like Perl, sports many features to process text files and perform system-management tasks.
Rails is a full-stack, open source Web framework in Ruby for writing real-world applications with more ease and less code.

Being a full-stack framework means that all layers in Rails are built to work together so you don't repeat yourself and can use a single language from top to bottom. Within Rails, everything (templates to control flow to business logic) is written in Ruby. Rails favors reflection and runtime extensions over configuration files and annotations.
Download the open source Ruby on Rails Web framework.

Download Ruby from the ruby-lang.org project Web site.

Here are some of the best free Ruby On Rails Learning and Training Content that I have recently found.

Ruby On Rails (24 pages, 922kb, pdf format)
The main goal of the document is to give you an overview of Ruby On Rails, specifically, what it is, what is does, and where it is being used. You will see if Rails is feasible for your needs and will learn about resources where you can obtain more information about learning Rails.

Jim Weirich's Ruby On Rails Presentation
[.mov, 50.4MB] This was given at the January 2006 Cincinnati (Ohio, USA) eXtreme Programmers Group, XP Cincinatti. (archived)

Ruby On Rails Screencasts and Conference Presentations
These Screencasts offer a view at the fundamentals of getting started with a Rails application, and how they work. The presentations are slides and a movie.

An Introduction to Ruby On Rails (A 13 slide presentation in pdf format.)

An Introduction to Ruby On Rails (44 slides, 944kb, pdf format)

Ruby On Rails slides (48 slides, 553b, pdf format)

4 Chapters from Build Your Own Ruby On Rails Web Applications (163 pages, 3.95mb, pdf format)

Installing Ruby On Rails on Linux (7 pages, 711kb, pdf format)

A Ruby On Rails Cheatsheet (1 page, 105kb, pdf format)

Another Ruby On Rails Cheatsheet (1 page, 186kb, pdf format)

Ruby On Rails Reference (37 pages, 492kb, pdf format)
This is a "short" Ruby on Rails reference. It's goal is to give you an overview over the most used functions, methods, and classes. It is not intended as a tutorial, but as a reference guide for those already familiar with this technology.

Ruby on Rails 1.16 - Edge Reference (25 pages, 77kb, pdf format)

A Quick Introduction to Rails
This Rails presentation is designed for a firefox browser.

Ruby On Rails Videos at Blinkbits
These videos include the following:
- About Ruby on Rails Components (video/quicktime)
- Seeing Is Believing - updated_rails_tutorial.mov
- Ruby on Rails - Why not
- AJAX in Ruby on Rails tutorial
- Ruby on Rails demo
- rails_setup.mov
- tim bray - ruby on rails podcast
- Screencast InstantRails

10 Things Every Java Programmer Should Know About Ruby, By Jim Weirich

Software Architecture Case Study: Ruby on Rails (24 pages, 385kb, pdf format)
A high-level view of the Rails architecture makes it look very much like other web application frameworks. Its architecture is based on MVC, designed to separate concerns and reduce the coupling between disparate functionality. Part of Rails’ power comes from the fact that this architecture is connected through an auto-generated code base structure. The developer can set up a project and then make changes to the model directly and observe the results without a lot of work to set up every part of getting that data propagated throughout the rest of the system.

The entire benefit of using Ruby on Rails is in many of the small things it does to benefit the developer in ways that other similar frameworks do not. These little things collectively work together to create a development experience which overall seems much more agile and less cumbersome than the process involved in working with other large and robust web development architectures.