It's a good text, but it might be recommended that an Agile Development specific book be read, either beforehand or concurrently, while evolving the knowledge imparted in these pages. "The Art of Agile Development" by James Shore is a good compliment to this reading. Agile of course, does not only apply to Ruby and Rails, but Ruby and Rails are uniquely fashioned to promote Agile techniques. Prior Rails books do not illuminate this connection so well as this one does, if at all. As such, it can be more highly recommended to learn rails via this book as it exposes this connection through-out. As a context sensitive framework, rails can be learned to the degree of exposing just that much, or ... one might learn how to use rails in an fully iterative and collaborative development environment. That statement should clarify the import of this book. One might claim that there is a right way to learn Rails and well then too, the old way. Learn it the right way, using Agile Development practices. One quickly notes that Agile is not just a management tool, but a programmer's development methodology. In fact it transcends many development functions, from product management to testing, final release and continued maintenance and support. Rails as a framework, is enhanced by an understanding of how it fits with Agile. This book goes miles toward making that clear.