I did the same thing. My first book was shelfware for four years. What I 
found most useful, in order, are

1. Ruby for Rails by David Black (It explains Ruby in  away that I could 
grok)
2. Ruby Cookbook
3. Programming Ruby (2nd edition - I keep this one at work and v1. at 
home as references)

I have the 2nd edition of The Ruby Way on order and am about to order 
2nd edition (second copy) of _Agile_Web_Development_with_Rails_. I think 
it would be great to have a similar book to Chan's "The Java Developer's 
Alamanac" that lists all APIs of all known Ruby libraries. There are 
probably smart IRB or ri tricks that make this unnecessary. Of course, I 
do have more than 20 Java books ...


stuinzuri wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Back in 2001 or so I took a look at ruby...downloaded ruby for my
> windows machine, bought Thomas & Hunt's "Programming Ruby" (2001,
> Addison Wesley), ......and promptly got caught up in a massive career
> change.
>
> Now I am back with a bit of Java and mgmt experience under my belt and
> want to get back into ruby on my MacBook (with built in ruby 0.9
> (02/07/03))
>
> The question is, am i still good with this five year old book?  At
> least for a while?  Or should I consider it prime recycling material?
> My interest at this point is only personal and not professional...so I
> can't stick the employer with the bill.  :P
>
> tia,
>
> Stu
>
>
>
>