Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic Way To Learn & Use Rails
Comment: Rails is a fairly new technology (2004) so there are not a lot of options out there to learn how to use and program web applications to use this exciting new ability to get web applications up and running fast and with high performance in mind. Luckily we have just the book to solve this problem of how to learn Rails and get your site up and running in no time thanks to "Agile Web Development with Rails" written by Dave Thomas and David Heinemeier Hansson!!
Simply put, Rails is a new way to output dynamic content on a web site, similar to ASP and PHP. The thing that is great about the Rails technology is the ease of use once you have the framework installed, and the power that comes out of the box. With Rails you can make database connections with ease, and write code to do everything from the simple action of just creating/using variables to highly involved code that has flexibility and functionality always in mind.
The format of writing code that uses Rails looks very different from your ASP environment that most web developers are probably familiar with, but the learning curve is not very steep. You should be able to quickly make the transition to using Rails by using this guide which is structured very well and provides many pictures of the output generated as you go from one page to the next.
The author begins with the premise that he will be making an online store site, and slowly builds the site from the ground up, showing how code formatting is generated, SQL connections and database usage is put in place, and goes on to talk about profiling, performance tracking... the whole enchilada!!
This is a fantastic reference for anyone that wants to learn more about Rails development or is undertaking actual production of a site that uses Rails as the server-side framework. For such a new technology it's refreshing that such a great guide is already available for the public.
***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing book on Rails -- and web application development
Comment: Having read "The Pragmatic Programmer", I knew I would not be disappointed buying a book written by Dave Thomas. Add to that the fact that it is co-authored by the creator of rails, buying the book is a no-brainer. Four other experts have contributed a section each as well.
It didn't expect to see a book on rails out so quickly -- rails being a fairly recently developed framework. But then, with the authors being advocates of agile practices, its hardly surprising.
I was drawn to Rails after watching the fifteen minute video ( www.rubyonrails.org ) showing that you can develop web applications very quickly. Having gone through configuration file hell in many projects, the Rails philosophy of favoring convention over configuration makes a lot of sense. This will be a great framework to put together a quick and not-dirty prototype that can evolve into a final product.
I am about half-way through the book and it is a hands-on tutorial from start to finish of iteratively building a nearly full-fledged ecommerce web application. An added bonus is that the authors continually inject sound programming common-sense and agile programming practices while going about familiarizing us with rails. Even if you are never ever going to use rails it is worthwhile going through this book just for this reason.
The "form" in which the material is presented is also excellent. Code snippets are cross-indexed to complete source code in an appendix so that you can easily establish context without disturbing the narrative flow. The style of writing keeps the reader in control with unobtrusive pointers to help if needed.
The wisdom that will be imparted will be relevant even if you are stuck in the slow and "standard" world of J2EE. You could still use Rails to build quick prototypes.
Buy this book -- and if you can, also buy the "Programming Ruby" book. The first edition of "Programming Ruby" is available online -- so if rising gas prices and the like are causing a cash crunch, I recommend buying this rails book and falling back on the online documentation to learn and master Ruby.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Comment: I just finished researching and assessing the use of Rails (a.k.a. Ruby on Rails). The primary technical resource for this research was the book, Agile Web Development with Rails by Dave Thomas and David Heinemeir Hansson. As you probably already know, Dave Thomas of Pragmatic Programmer fame is a delightful writer and David Hansson is the guy that created the Rails framework, so I expected the book to be good, but not this good.
In my opinion, this is one of the best development books I've had the pleasure of reading in a long time. I found myself reading almost the entire book - which is unusual since I normally can't get past a few pages in most technical books before labeling it crap and putting in the circular bin. (I do not donate those books to the library because I don't want to encourage their distribution).
In my opinion, Rails is a really important lightweight framework for developing green-field web applications that don't require the heavy lifting associated with 2PC and support for legacy systems. If you want to be on the cusp of the next frontier in web and enterprise development, you should start with this book which will introduce you to Rails, Ruby, and a new way of thinking about web development in the enterprise.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I was expecting a good book but this is awesome
Comment: I have been developing web applications since ever. I recently decided to get on rails after seeing the videos at rails web site. I have to admit that I was a bit curious if rails was another MVC framework written in a fancy language called ..umm Ruby I guess.
I got questions. Is Rails really as hot as people mention? Is this language called Ruby worth investing in? Would it fit my requirements for large web applications which I prefer to use Mason over PHP?
I got all my questions answered. First of all the book is very well written. The authors get you on the rails and guide through development of a full application before doing anything else. So this lets you get familiarize with the environment and also help you acquire basics of which editor to use, how to see the results, how to layout your desktop.
After developing your very first guided application, the book introduces you the foundations of Rails. One of the best things about this book is that it does not feel like a reference. Each chapter, along the way includes examples, and more important warning of common error which you will surely make. If I had skipped ahead I would have done lots of head banging. The warnings are very well placed.
The book covers lots for advanced features you would not expect in such a book which includes SQL injection, precautions for parameter mangling, scalability and deployment.
To be honest, I knew nothing about Ruby and still not read the Ruby book I bought along with this book. If you are a Perl developer, you'll almost feel at home with Ruby.
So, having bought this book one week ago, I had to make a choice for an upcoming project which I have to deliver in 4 weeks time. I made a bold choice and started with Rails. The project is due 2 weeks and I'm almost finished, seriously. It would take much more time with Struts or Spring. I also must add the customer satisfaction of iterative demos.
One final note. Rails support an extensive set of test driven features. The book presents how to write good tests both unit and functional on the project it guides you to develop. I was amazed to see that I was able to actually make requests from controllers, easily parse results to test the flow of my web application.
Bottom line, I found Rails to be very productive for me and this book made me almost finish a real world applications which otherwise I'd still be very far from even the half.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fantastic book, a must read
Comment: This is a must read book for any career developer. It will give you ideas for your existing work, and inspire you to try out Ruby and Rails.
I thought I had seen the best from Dave Thomas with the Pragmatic Programmer and the Ruby pick-axe book, but this book tops both. It's well thought out and organized. The writing is engaging. The technology is well researched. The examples are great. Illustrations are sparing, and used effectively.
I can't come up with enough words to say how much I love this book. This is easily the best tech book this year. It's a must read. It's a tour de force that shows how good tech books really should be.
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