The number of replies and level of invective here I think does equate to “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”. I bought the books and read this list for quite a while, worked through the few tutorials out there and just played around; BUT, I only did that on the 4th or 5th go around after the buzz around the framework was almost deafening. I ignored it and went back to PHP the first 3 or 4 times because I couldn’t find the good 50,000 ft view/introduction to review.
I don’t begrudge anyone for making a buck, and selling the documentation (in the form of AWDWR) I don’t find unseemly but it does/will slow adoption and critical mass.
As others have said, I too believe that good ‘free’ documentation will eventually emerge, it just takes time and someone that wants to Shepherd it.
Perhaps it’s not a direct comparison, but consider how easy the PHP docs are to use … want to know about something … type http://php.net/something and up comes syntax, description and user annotated examples; an RDOC API dump is nowhere near as nice.
We’ll get there someday, till then you have to have faith it’s worth learning and buy the book(s).