ROaR

Read and follow Rolling with Ruby on Rails, then do Part 2 and go on to Ajax on Rails. Then come back and tell me you are not the slighest bit impressed and interested.

I have just spent the past two days pouring over this brush-fire technology and I am very impressed and very interested. Every bit of Ruby on Rails shows that it was made by web-developers wanting to solve everyday problems. By developers who want to cut through the repetitive and time consuming bits and leave you time for the important part; What your app does.

If you have any programming know-how then you will pick it up very quickly. Even for someone like me who has been developing excusively on Windows this Ruby stuff is straightforward and refreshing. So don't be put off by the open-source and LAMP conotations. Just give it a go.