Thanks symfoniq. I started with PHP also, and picked it up fairly quickly. I'd learned Ruby regardless, just to work with this dev team and it never hurts to know another language. I really wanted to hear experience from someone who went from php to ruby (since that's what I'd be doing).

Php .net is so well doc'd with an example for almost every function/feature that it made it EXTREMELY easy to pick up. Does Ruby have something similar (really hope it's not -> ruby-lang.org, reminds me of w3), not too keen to Michael Hartl's just cause I'd have to buy it.