i’m strongly recommending
http://poignantguide.net/ruby/ – enjoy.

I know it’s not an online resource, but it’s really hard to beat Agile Web Development with Rails . It seems to be much more complete than any of the online resources, and it covers a lot of the common Ruby and ROR idioms, which can be just as important as the syntax. You probably couldn’t ask for a more qualified list of authors, either.

Regarding prior Ruby knowledge: when it comes down to it, Rails is just a framework written in Ruby, and Rails applications are just Ruby programs that use the framework. So Rails applications are still Ruby applications, and you will need to learn Ruby. Fortunately, the book doesn’t really assume that the reader has much Ruby knowledge, and there’s a good introduction to Ruby in one of the appendices.

Unfortunately, Rails is still under constant development, so many of the tutorials will have outdated information. If you have problems, it helps to look at the releases on the weblog to see the major changes for each version.

First, learn ruby with Why’s book and Programming Ruby. If you can afford it, buy edition 2.

Other stuff:

• manuals
• wiki
• actual docs

The book Agile Web Development with Rails is way out of date now, at least, the first edition is. Be sure to grab the second edition.

I started programming in Ruby from an exposure to Rails. I would say that a good, fundamental working knowledge of Ruby will undoubtedly help you with Rails development.

BTW, I don’t work with the Rails framework anymore … haven’t had a use for it in a while.