Why Ruby ?

i have done a bit of programming in ASP.NET,JSP and PHP among them what is like most is PHP.....

but from last six month i noticed that everyone is talking much about RUBY and it's dream Framework RAILS ....

can anyone explain me is Ruby and its framework Rails is the next big thing in programming world specially on web application development.

and why..?

IF its the Best how and where to start ?

re: Why Ruby ?

Some good info may be found on the Ruby on Rails site or it's Wikipedia entry. You can find some tutorials here.