Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Detailed introduction to Rails
Comment: I followed the Rails hype for a while, turned off by the Ruby syntax.
Yes, it looked like Perl had risen from the /dev/zombie.
A couple of friends had written some apps in it and I've never seen them this excited before.
So I had to look closer. My friends were right, as full time java developers, there are a lot to "get" from Ruby and Rails.
Rails is set of libraries to write web sites with database backends.
For web apps written in the MVC pattern and table-backed models, I don't think it get any better than Rails.
This Agile book spends a couple of chapters on a fictious but informative session between a programmer trying to solve a job with a customer.
Rails almost-zero-configuration "syntax" is described pretty detailed.
Again, as a java developer, you just sit there nodding, thinking how you'd (have to) solve it with j2ee.
The mid and last chapters talk about unit testing and common sense around scaling issues and web security (such as sql injection).
Even if you don't end up writing more than a test app in Rails, those last chapters are a good read.
Pick this book up if you have done web development in other frameworks before and are curious about Rails.
If you continue using Rails like I did, it's a good reference book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Welcome to The Python/Java/PHP/PERL Rehabilitation Clinic
Comment: If you do web development of any sort, you are going to want this book. And once you have it, you're going to want to keep it on your shelf right next to your desk for years to come.
I'm not going to talk up the ruby-language, it's been done better for my at places like http://ruby-lang.org/ The language has many strengths that are expressed in this book.
But what we're here for is Rails - This new framework that has the potential to change web applications for the better. I work primarily with PHP because it cuts down on development time, it very powerful, and has a lot of built in functions that pave the way for some great applications. However, there's a problem with these PHP apps. They are usually just hacked together, and once it works, it works. There's a lot of tedious work involved in getting everything going, and while the control over the whole program is great, you find it easy to get lost in your PHP code while you're just wanting something to work correctly and hope to god that your client doesn't change their mind at the last minute and leave you stranded.
This is where Rails makes it's presence known. The ultra-flexibility of the framework makes changing, expanding, and improving your applications easy as pie. Easy, but not as tasty. And this book does a great job of walking you through what you can do with real life examples that are easy to follow and actually work (how many of us have got a programming book before only to find out that some things don't even run when typed verbatim from the text?).
Dave Thomas keeps to the Ruby mantra of making programming fun again. The style of writing used makes for a very easy read and feels like an adventure into programming something new. You get to build one step at a time, see what it does, some more is explained, and then there's another small adventure. This is unlike other programming books (especially the PHP and JAVA variety) where a good lot of the exercises is just typing html output (or whatever output) a few pages at a time, followed by a boring 2 page explanation about program variables and memory placement. If you are sick of books that feel like tedious work just to learn the language, this will be a refreshing surprise for you.
So why am I giving it 4 instead of 5? Because it's not without fault. First off, it claims it's for beginners (or near-beginners) to experts. Yah, right. Because so many things in this book are glanced over quickly as far as the back end of the language and what you're really doing, if you don't have a handle on certian concepts beforehand, you're going to be very lost very quickly. Also, unlike PHP, ASP, or JSP which is a pretty easy and simple set up on your OS or on your webserver (where PHP is probably included if you're paying for hosting somewhere), Ruby on Rails is a little more hands on. If you aren't good at (or at least familiar with) a command prompt, that can be a whole new adventure by itself. Also, you're going to know how to work the mySQL command line at least enough to create databases, add users, make tables, etc. Plus the basics of programming languages and control structures should be something you'll already know coming into this book. Be forewarned, Thomas shows no mercy, the first real programming chapter makes a hello world app and then adds the current time to it. Nothing too heavy here. But then it's "ok, now we're going to build a shopping cart application". Granted he takes it slow and goes step by step, but there's none of the "This is a variable" and "this is how we call a function" stuff you're akin to seeing in these kind of books. Which can be good or bad.
If you've already got some programming under your belt, you'll appreciate the get-down-to-business style that this book takes, but if you're still in the infant stages of programming then this book may just do more harm than good. It all depends. I suggest going to Barnes and Noble or any other local book outlet, picking it up and reading some of it over, if it looks like it's too much, wander over and pick up "PHP and MySQL Web development" and start with something like that. But if it looks like something you could get through and have fun with, run home, go on amazon, and pick yourself up this book.
And by the way, Welcome to The Python/Java/PHP/PERL Rehabilitation Clinic.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent introduction to rails
Comment: Overall this book is great. It gives a brief overview of Rails and the MVC (Model, View, Controller) design philosophy, then dives right into a good real world example of building a simple e-commerce site with a product catalog, shopping cart, and administration, it is refreshing to see a book give a decent real world example rather than an oversimplified one that really adds nothing, as many books do. After allowing you get your feet wet with the sample site it then continues to go into more depth, explaining how rails works under the covers and even delves into AJAX. The one weakness of this book is that it doesn't give you any background into the Ruby programming language, which is critical to understanding all the examples. You can get by initially, but eventually you get lost without understanding the programming language. There is an appendix that introduces the language, but it's too small to explain everything that you need to become proficient. They really should've devoted more time to Ruby since it is not yet a widely used language like C++ or Java. This book will definitely get you up and running with rails, but be sure to buy a Ruby book as well if you want to be able to effectively use the framework.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Kind of a must-have if you want to get started with Rails
Comment: If you're like me, you like to have documentation at your side when using a new language or framework, and well, this was the only thing available so I got it.
Frankly, it does a reasonably good job of explaining Rails basics and even goes into some production server setup issues and configuration ideas. I think what I was really looking for was more like a Rails reference book, which this is not -- This is more like a "learn rails in 24 hours" except the difference is you actually CAN!
Well written and a good collection of issues addressed. Basically its a must-have.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Essential
Comment: Rails may be wonderful, and once you know it you may indeed be able to slap to gether amazing applications in 16 minutes, but it is definitely not easy to jump into. If you're already sailing along writing Rails applications, the book is probably still valuable as a reference, but if you're just getting started or interested in starting, just buy the book. I usually try to get along with online documentation but in this case the book has been a life saver. And buy the Programming Ruby book, too, you won't regret it.
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