Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: The Must have for new Rails Developers
Comment: I'm a new object oriented programmer (I only program for a hobby) and this book has been a great aid in my learning of Ruby on Rails. The book contains lots of useful examples and covers the various aspects of Rails in depth. The first few chapters provide a high level overview of Ruby on Rails. The next few walk you through developing a online store. The last several chapters cover Rails in depth, it also explains a lot of the concepts used during the extended online store example.
Agile Web Development with Rails (2nd edition) is excellent and I highly recommend it to someone wanting to learn Rails. However, I do have a reservation. The extended example is a bit simplistic. It covers enough stuff to introduce you to the different part of Rails that is needed to build a website, but it doesn't cover everything you would need to do to actually build a production website...though the rest of the book touches on some of the missing parts of the example.
Also note, the book doesn't teach you object oriented programming, but that is not what it is far. It does have a short appendix explaining Ruby. If you're a quick learner, you should be able to pick up everything you need without buying another programming book. Nonetheless, I think having another book to teach Ruby and Object Oriented Programming concepts as a reference guide would be of great help.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Best Practices Overall
Comment: The book is to the point while still pleasant to read. It is the right book for the killer framework/application of 'Ruby On Rails'.
My personal recommendation is that it delivers the highest reward to mid-level and experienced developers from J2EE. Those guys will have an eye-opening experience of "how simple" web development can be, using the right tool. A beginner though should also refer to other sources, like HTML standards and articles on MVC pattern, before or while reading this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Comment: This books explainse everything that is needed to start building a Rails application, even if you know nothing about ruby. The Depot Example is a great guide of how to build a site with Rails
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not for the Novice
Comment: This book has undeniably ignited the enthusiasm of veteran web developers, but it simply cannot be considered a manual for the absolute novice.
As a casual hobbyist, I had high hopes for "Agile...", and for the Ruby on Rails framework generally. I should have heeded, instead, the "Agile.." introduction, which describes the text as a means of allowing professional web developers to become more efficient at their essential tasks.
I'm in no position to judge whether the authors' claims are accurate in this regard. However, I can say with certainty that "Agile..." is no 'for dummies' book.
Beginners should beware the extravagant claims of some reviewers who describe the "Agile..." book's flagship tutorial ('Depot') as a weekend project. I found it extremely time-consuming and, despite being peppered by textbook-style bullet-points, regularly lacking the most essential, big-picture explanations. Diagrams, for instance, would have helped immensely.
This is especially true when, during the Depot tutorial, readers attempt to understand the interaction between files and the folders in which they reside. If beginners find the deceptively simple system rapidly devolves into a conceptual morass, as it did for me, they cannot, perhaps, be faulted. Neither can they expect an easy rescue.
While I found this book extremely disappointing, it clearly ranks as one of the essential tomes for Ruby on Railers. The explanatory narrative and friendly prose are engagingly informal. The authors have diligently formatted chapters into sections which make sense and are clearly delineated. These enticing qualities should not deceive amateur web-enthusiasts. Keep searching for some other, simpler, and more complete book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I owen it
Comment: Great book, very detailed examples. I recommend it for anyone just starting out with rails.
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