Learning to program in Ruby is easy, but learning to program the "Ruby Way" is a much greater challenge. Reading Design Patterns in Ruby has certainly helped solidify my understanding of Ruby's idioms and is a great book for programmers who would like to take their Ruby skills to the next level.

Software development is an expensive process and one of the most costly components in it is maintenance. This is an oddity, since software is not actually subject to wear and tear. It is however prone to error or malfunction and having to fix bugs in already deployed software is what can cause costs to explode. In that respect, bugs are like aging wine. The older they get, the more expensive, they become. This makes it desirable to catch them as early as possible, by rigorously testing code before it makes it's way into a finished product.

The Rails Rescue Handbook is a new, 83 page PDF e-book by Mike Gunderloy that goes in-depth on how to "rescue" a Rails project that might have, well, gone off the rails. The book is aimed at people who've had to (or want to) take over development on other people's projects and Rails newbies who want to learn conventions