I think you also forgot to add Sitepoint’s “Simply Rails 2” awesome book for a beginner.

Do you know of any book that covers Messaging and Ruby and/or Rails in very great detail?

A client is asking for me to develop sorta like an intranet to distribute messages to all stores under his superstore business – to all his store managers.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Segun

First, a premise. I feel that we should push Ruby 1.9 forward as a community. Rails 3 will come out at the end of the year, probably December 2009 or January 2010, and it will consider Ruby 1.9 to be the preferred Ruby implementation. I realize that as of today learning Ruby 1.8 is still important, but having to give a slant to the list of books, I prefer to opt for future-proof ones.

Back to your question, the second edition of the Pickaxe is a solid Ruby book divided in two parts, an intermediate tutorial on the language, and a reference at the end. As far as 1.8 tutorials go, I feel that The Ruby Way (2nd edition) has more substance to it and many more examples. It’s also beefier when it comes to metaprogramming. If we’re looking for a reference-style, The Ruby Programming Language is absolutely excellent for that. And it has the advantage of being newer, more concise, and covering both a recent version of Ruby 1.8 (e.g., 1.8.7) and 1.9.

Listing both books in the intermediate category, I don’t feel like there is a need for a third one – not one that’s based on Ruby 1.8 at least. If you were to buy both The Ruby Way (2nd edition) and The Ruby Programming Language, they would complement each other quite well. I don’t feel that the same could be said for the old pickaxe.

Programming Ruby 1.9, may be a whole different story though, since it would be up-to-date, cover 1.9, and be both a reference and a tutorial. I don’t own this edition yet. When and if I’ll do, I’ll consider its inclusion for sure.

All of these on your list were good to me, but mostly for one read only. The pickaxe is a necessity since it’s a reference manual that one needs to refer to and the Grounded gives you that ‘ahaa!’ moment–it’s the only book that decently explains ‘self’.

You should have valid reasons for not mentioning it, and knowing why not to use a book can be just as useful as knowing why to use a book.