Development resources

New to Ruby?

• Programming Ruby This Pragmatic Programmer book is a good free introduction to ruby. It is based on an older version of ruby (1.6) and will serve as a good introduction. I wouldn't expect that you'd find any differences until you got into the more complex topics. The more recent edition is for sale, if you wish.
• tryruby.org Try ruby from the comfort of your browser. A nice tutorial to walk you through the basics of Ruby.
• Ruby Koans Useful if you've seen Ruby before but want to stretch your wings a little.

New to Rails?

• Rails for Zombies An entertaining and effective tutorial to get you started in Rails.
• Rails tutorial book A fairly comprehensive walk through of what Rails has to offer.
• The Rails Book The canonical Rails book. Sadly, not available for free. Has an introduction to ruby in the appendix.

New to Git?

• Git Introductions

Once you're up and running

• Api Dock Searchable API for Ruby, Ruby on Rails, and Rodc that allows people to add helpful comments/examples.

• Rails API This version is searchable and awesome. You can view it online or download your own bundle. I recommend the version with both Ruby and Rails included.

• Rails Guides Covers all the topics that are hard to learn from the API. My favorites are: Testing, Layouts and Rendering, Routing, and The Query Interface.

Rspec

The main docs page is here. I didn't find the 2-minute tutorial very useful, though. The good stuff is in the other links.

• Core for basic structure and subject stuff
• Expectations for "should" matchers
• Rails for Rails-specific stuff.

Also

• A decent slide deck on Rspec 2 best practices.