Understanding the Ruby object model

I'm sorry to be critical but this article is a dangerously incomplete treatment.<p>For instance, methods only exist on classes. And there's no mention of the singleton class whatsoever.<p>For a more accurate lesson, watch Dave Thomas, author of the "Pickaxe" Programming Ruby book, present on the Ruby Object Model: <a href="http://scotland-on-rails.s3.amazonaws.com/2A04_DaveThomas-SOR.mp4" rel="nofollow">http://scotland-on-rails.s3.amazonaws.com/2A04_DaveThomas-SO...</a>

I've just started with Ruby and Rails using a book called Ruby on Rails tutorial 3.. this article didn't provide anything that I found useful. It reminded me of a lecture on Java I heard about in Computer Science 101 day 2.

Sounds like a database admin learning ruby. No idea why anyone wants to think of classes as anything more than fancy structs with allocation.

Is Ruby still considered a "fad" or is it actually gaining weight as a serious development platform? I'm seeing more and more articles about it on HN these days.