Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #626259 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 425 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780975841952
• BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

About the Author
Patrick Lenz has been developing web applications for 10 years. As well as being the founder and lead developer of the freshmeat.net software portal, his Rails consultancy and application development company, limited overload, was responsible for a major relaunch of eins.de, which is now one of the most popular Ruby on Rails sites in Europe.

Customer Reviews

The best of the current crop of Ruby and Rails introductory texts
All I can say is WOW!!! I am a Ruby and Rails Newbie and I have been searching for an introductory text to both Ruby and Rails for several weeks. For context, I have moderate programming language (but minimal web development) experience. I purchased the following texts (in order): Agile Web Development With Rails, Rails Solutions, Ruby For Rails, and Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Applications. Each has it's strengths, and I am sure that I will be able to draw something of significance from each; however, after working through much of Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Applications, this is clearly the introductory text I have been searching for.

The book provides a well balanced presentation and sequencing of Ruby and Rails basics followed by practical application within "Shovell" - your very own Digg clone sample application. Some key topics covered in the book:

* Installation -- Complete instructions are provided for installing and configuring Ruby, Rails, and MySQL on Windows XP, Linux and Mac OS X.

* Ruby basics -- this topic is presented as a minimal introduction with additional information provided as the text progresses. In fact, the entire text progresses in easily digestible, but meaningful increments which goes a long way to avoid information overload. Additionally, the Interactive Ruby shell (irb) is introduced and used to allow hands-on experimentation with the language features that are being explained. I found this very helpful in learning the basics as it allowed me to play around with the language features and answer my own questions through experimentation.

* MVC architecture -- the book does good job of introducing and explaining the Model-View-Controller architecture and it's implementation within Rails without getting bogged down in extraneous theory or details. This is probably too light for experienced developers, but in my opinion, just right for the newbie.

* Rails 1.2 basic features and conventions -- this is a big deal as newbies are likely to be stymied by warnings and errors associated with superceded pre-1.2 features. I know this all too well as (with other books -notably Rails Solutions) I have pulled my hair out trying figure out why I didn't get the same results that were printed in the book. Thankfully, Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Applications spares the newbie from this added complication. Like the presentation of Ruby basics, the Rails introduction includes the use of the Rails console which is a great way to learn the basics by "geting your hands dirty" with Rails.

* Generators and Migrations -- after working through the manual creation of a few database, model and view examples (using direct SQL, and the Rails console) the book introduces the use of some key productivity tools provided by Rails -namely generators and migrations. This sequence helped me to better appreciate both the benefits (and some limitations) of these Rails features.

* AJAX -- Like the Ruby and Rails topics, AJAX is covered in a very accessible manner -- explaining what it is, how it works, and how to use it to do meaningful things in Rails (all without overloading the newbie with complex theory, jargon or head-spinning detail). I know I will need to get a text on AJAX at some point -- not to understand it or to figure out ow to use it, but to figure out how to get *more* out of it -- however, for now I am good with AJAX for what I want to do with Rails.

* Testing -- Like the other topics, the book introduces Rails unit, functional and integration test features without diverging into a heavy text on testing. The author makes it clear that he is not trying to demonstrate Test Driven Design, but instead is trying to (1) emphasize the importance of testing, and (2) present an accessible approach to testing for the beginner. For me, he has succeeded -- the subject was presented in a manner that made it seem like a natural extension of programming with Rails and not another obstacle to my learning process. Net-net: I'm convinced that the incremental testing approach using Rails automated test features is so easy that it's a no brainer.

* Dynamic web site development -- while the book does not claim to teach this explicitly, that is exactly what you are doing when developing web applications with rails. All the elements are there: HTML, CSS, XML, databases, and server and client code. I previously tried to learn dynamic web site development using PHP, HTML, MySQL and CSS, but frankly got bogged down in PHP syntax while also trying get my head around learning all those different elements (HTML, MySQL and CSS) simultaneously. I am not experiencing that problem using this book. It's probably a combination of the excellent text, as well as Ruby/Rails -- Rails Helpers minimize HTML and MySQL learning curve, and embedded Ruby is a lot easier to get my head around than PHP.

There is certainly more to the book, but these are the essentials as I see it.

To top it off, all of this material is delivered in entertaining and consistently accessible prose. To be balanced (but in no way qualifying my enthusiastic endorsement) the text is not perfect --there are a handful of code and text errors -- so check the book's sitepoint page for errata.

My game plan is now set: (A) work through the basics with Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Applications, (B) follow with Agile Web Development With Rails to learn how to leverage Rails productivity features, and (C) utilize the other texts as supplemental references. Thanks to Patrick Lenz and Sitepoint this Newbie is now on his way to Ruby and Rails proficiency!

UPDATE TO INITIAL REVIEW:

Several months after submitting this review my perspective has not changed -- even after reading several newer Ruby and Rails books. However, I would supplement the reading list and offer the following as my choice for the definitive Ruby on Rails canon (for learning and becoming productive with Rails):

1. Best Rails beginner book: Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Applications, by Patrick Lenz
2. Best Rails intermediate book: Agile Web Development With Rails, by Dave Thomas and David Heinemeier Hansson
3. Best Rails reference book: Practical Rails Projects, by Eldon Alameda
4. Best Ruby learning and reference book: The Ruby Way, by Hal Fulton

I am now on my third Rails application and find myself consistently referring to #2 for Rails best practices, #3 for RESTful design/development guidance & practical solutions to common programming challenges, and #4 for hardcore Ruby guidance.

A good text for newcomers to Rails and web programming
The book is marketed as "the ultimate beginner's guide to Ruby on Rails", and while I don't know that I would go quite that far, it is definitely a good introduction, especially if you are new to Ruby. I felt it spent about three or four chapters too many on introductory matter (you don't really start doing anything with Rails itself until chapter 5) but once the book gets started it does a good job of helping you get a new Rails application off the ground.

* It was written for Rails 1.2, making it one of the few books available covering the newest version of the framework.

* It encourages unit and functional tests. Patrick mentions TDD(Test-Driven Development), but does not follow it in the book, which is probably for the best in a book targeting people with little prior programming experience. Instead, each chapter ends with a section in which he walks through the process of adding tests for the features added in that chapter. Effective, but only as a step towards learning better testing practices.

* It makes good use of the code generators and migrations, demonstrating their strengths well.

* It shows how to use RJS templates to implement Ajaxed features, and the respond_to method to implement graceful degradation for browsers without Javascript enabled.

* It shows how to implement a basic user authentication system _without resorting to plugins_! Far, far too many newcomers to Rails jump on the user-auth plugin bandwagon, which leads to cargo-culting. My advice is: _never use a plugin you would not be able to write yourself._ (Later in the book Patrick uses the acts_as_taggable plugin to implement tagging, but ultimately the point of the chapter was to show how to use plugins.)

* It walks you through setting up your first production environment. Although it doesn't use Capistrano (which would be well beyond the scope of the book), it does _mention_ Capistrano, as well as many other possible deployment environments (including SCGI, Mongrel, nginx, and more).

So, are you new to Ruby and Rails? Want to learn how to write dynamic web applications? This book will suit you nicely. However, if you have prior experience with building Rails apps, you'll probably find this book too simple for your own needs.

Good but rushed
I like the book and I am finding that I am learning wellfrom this book. BUT... this must have been a rush job, because there are so many errors in this book I just had to write a review. I have never written a review before, but I have wasted so much time with all the code errors everywhere that I just had to say something. Even the errata reference section online are a little cryptic.
I think some of the built in functionality is not repeated often enough, so you have to keep flicking back to figure out what a statement means. (example-naming conventions of symbols,tables,columns,fixtures,controllers,views,partials,etc..)
some suggestions.
1. install the exact same version of ruby on rails as the author.
2. Make corrections in the book before you start any coding.
3. Don't try to make minor changes, as it will bite you in the rear later.