Thanks to Rails, Ruby is finally coming into its own as an awesome language. In recognition of this, Apress and its imprint, friends of ED, will be publishing a minimum of 10 Ruby and Ruby on Rails books throughout 2006 and 2007. From entry level books, such as Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional and Beginning Ruby on Rails: From Novice to Professional, to more specific titles like Practical Ruby for System Administration and Pro Ruby on Rails: Building Enterprise Solutions, the Apress team is ensuring that programmers will learn both the basic and advanced skills to run a clean Ruby shop.

We've seen the excitement level for Ruby/Ruby on Rails grow exponentially in the past few years, and we are extremely excited that we'll know be able to help grow the community and audience. In partnership with prolific blogger Pat Eyler, we'll be running contests for the first six months of 2007, in order to increase the knowledge base for programmers curious to know more about the Ruby/Ruby on Rails phenomenon. There are still a lot of questions out there about why and when Ruby/Ruby on Rails should be used, and our hope is that a proliferation of postings will both lessen the confusion and encourage programmers to try Ruby/Ruby on Rails out.

Sometime in the first week of the month, Pat will post, on behalf of an Apress author, a blogging challenge relating to a specific topic on Ruby/Ruby on Rails, and all programmers will be encouraged to post a thoughtful response on either his/her personal blog or on a public website. In order to be eligible, these must go up within 3 weeks of the original post, and the links must be posted as comments to Pat’s original post. The postings will be judged by a 3 person panel, which includes Pat Eyler, Apress Editor Keir Thomas, and a rotating guest judge. Within one week of the closing date, the judges will announce their decision, and the winner will receive his/her choice of 3 Apress and friends of ED titles.

The first contest will begin January 2007. The guest judge for January will be Apress author Jarkko Laine.