> advanced web developers working in Java who saw that Rails was had better answers than J2EE
I was not "advanced" at web development in 2006, but this is exactly what got me to try Ruby. Previously I had been reasonably happy with JSP and Java Servlets, but this Rails thing promised a better way. And it turned out for most of my needs, it was much better.
Also, the Rails Depot book was excellent, even back in the 1.x days (IIRC). It covered enough that you could build a fully working app with sessions, auth, crud, and reasonably abstracted layouts/views. Oh, and because Ruby was "simple", you honestly could start with that Rails book without knowing Ruby.
I was not "advanced" at web development in 2006, but this is exactly what got me to try Ruby. Previously I had been reasonably happy with JSP and Java Servlets, but this Rails thing promised a better way. And it turned out for most of my needs, it was much better.
Also, the Rails Depot book was excellent, even back in the 1.x days (IIRC). It covered enough that you could build a fully working app with sessions, auth, crud, and reasonably abstracted layouts/views. Oh, and because Ruby was "simple", you honestly could start with that Rails book without knowing Ruby.