David Heinemeier Hansson gives the Rails™ community its birthday and Christmas presents all at once with the announcement of a preview release of Rails 2.0:

Behold, behold, Rails 2.0 is almost here. But before we can slap on the final stamp, we’re going to pass through a couple of trial release phases. The first is this preview release, which allows you to sample the goodies in their almost finished state.

The King goes into quite some depth and covers a wide range of different and new features that have made it into Rails 2.0.

Keep in mind that this is just a preview release, so if you're not used to living on the edge, wait a little while until the release candidates or Rails 2.0 proper. In the meantime, check out this small Ruby program that checks to see if your app is already up to scratch for Rails 2.0.