Rapid Web Application Development — The Book
Prentice Hall’s Open Source Software Development Series already has some classics. Arnold Robin’s Linux Programming By Example is a fantastic book for learning the Linux and unix API’s. It dives into real world code, showing how Open Source projects handle the real issues and challenges that impact their projects. 
When you read Arnold’s book, You aren’t just looking at toy examples, most of the code comes from real world projects and is not only “production ready” it’s already been in production!
So it’s a real thrill to be in this series, and to be working with a publisher and editor who understand the value of next generation dynamic languages and web frameworks like TurboGears.
The light-saber (or if you prefer a law-suit free name the laser-sword) is designed to represent both the patience and practice required to achieve mastery, and the power and skill that comes when you have achieved it.
TurboGears, like Linux provides free infrastructure that makes it possible to create new products, more quickly, with more reliability, and more powerful features
Sure, it takes time and effort to wrap your head around SQLObject, CherryPy, Kid, and Mochikit but you can understand the basics and start writing usable code in a couple of hours, and once you’ve mastered the components of TurboGears you’ll be able to create dynamic, database-powered, ajax-enabled, web applications more quickly.
The great thing about TurboGears is the gentile slope of the “learning curve.” Sure, the journey from absolute beginner to Jedi Master can take a while, but right from the beginning you’ll be able to get things done.