This interview talks about David A. Black’s new book, The Well-Grounded Rubyist, and his views on learning Ruby and making the transition from Ruby 1.8.6 to 1.9.1.
David covers many topics including how he got started with Ruby, suggestions on how developers should learn Ruby to his views on moving to Ruby 1.9.1:
I'm afraid that, with all due respect to the core Ruby development team, I'm not a believer in 1.8.7. It's been described as a stepping-stone to 1.9, and that, together with some of the birth pains of 1.9 as a stable version, has provided a kind of safe haven for people who want some 1.9-era features but are skittish about 1.9. That's kind of unfortunate.
I'd encourage people very strongly at least to install 1.9.1, and see what problems you come up against. I don't think that making 1.8 more like 1.9 is the answer. It sends the message that there's a reason to avoid 1.9 -- and while that may have been true before 1.9.1, as far as I can tell it's now stable and on as solid a footing as any such release before it.
The interview also includes a free chapter from the book, Chapter 15: hooks and runtime introspection (PDF).
Please read the interview in its entirety titled The Well-Grounded Rubyist, David A. Black.