Customer comments on this selection.
 An excellent reference and guide to RoR
Pretty much all the positive aspects of this book have been covered by previous reviewers. As a rails noob with a still a hazy and sketchy understanding of many, many aspects of RoR, this book is exactly what I need. Its great strength is that it gives a detailed account of Rails, great detail in fact running to just over 900 pages. I have found that as I've worked thru other tutorial oriented Rails books, whenever I've been puzzled by some issue, this book has been very useful. Great resource, highly recommended.
Superb book to study when you need greater depth
I'm fairly new to Rails and have worked through the 'skateboard' book by Dave Thomas and several other tutorial style books. With that knowledge, I was able to get started on some real projects working with rails. However, much of the framework still felt too magical and I was constantly surprised when things broke (not good).
The Rails Way is a marvelous book to study after you have some rails experience and need to understand why the framework works like it does, and uncover aspects of rails that aren't commonly mentioned in other books. Honestly, to get the most value, I'd recommend reading this book cover to cover at least once and really study it. There's a lot of great information packed into every page, it is well worth the effort to read it all.
 Time for an update
The Rails community is flourishing, and the technology is evolving quickly. Before too long, Rails 2.3 will be in general release. This book is a solid reference, but its roots are in Rails 1.x, with a couple of scraps tossed in to earn the "Rails 2.0" seal on the cover. As a rails newbie, I got a foundation from this book, but unfortunately, if you try and take this book literally but you are working in rails 2.x, you will get frustrated. There are plenty of resources on the web to help fill this gap. I like having a physical reference, so I'm glad I bought the book, but newbies beware. I would love to see a new edition of this book, thoroughly updated to reflect the current state of rails.
The best reference books for those who already know Rails
This is my most frequently referenced book. Whenever I find myself unsure of how to do something I depend on The Rails Way to remind me. I've been programming with RoR since v1.2 though, so I know how to navigate the material. I noticed the poor reviews here cite it as a bad way to learn RoR from scratch. Well, I agree but in no way does that make it deserving of 1 or 2 stars.
Obie's chapter on ReST is the best and most concise explanation I've read so far. I wasn't able to completely understand ReST until I sat down and focused on that one chapter. Just that section alone made this book worth it for me.
 Don't start with this book
From the blurb it might appear that this book is a good way to get into Rails: it is not! When you read the intro in the book itself the author states that the intent of this book is to serve as a reference book for folks who already know Rails; curiously that fact didn't make it into the information used to aid purchasers. Maybe I'll find this book useful if and when I learn Rails; however, the first chapter did not seem very well written, so I don't have high hopes for the rest of the book.
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