Ruby for Rails: Ruby Techniques for Rails Developers

by David A. Black

Book Overview

-The word is out: with ""Ruby on Rails"" you can build powerful Web applications easily and quickly And just like the Rails framework itself, Rails applications are Ruby programs. That means you can't tap into the full power of Rails unless you master the Ruby language.

""Ruby for Rails,"" written by Ruby expert David Black (with a forward by David Heinemeier Hansson), helps Rails developers achieve Ruby mastery. Each chapter deepens your Ruby...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1932394699
• ISBN13: 9781932394696
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Manning Publications
• Length: 493 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Clear but a bit verbose

I found this book to be absolutely essential to understanding what I was doing while programming with Rails. After reading this book a lot of things became clear in the Dave Thomas book (Agile Web Development with Rails). If you're thinking about hiking up the Rails learning curve, you'll be most of the way there once you finish this book. I had no previous experience with Ruby, but I have programmed in C++, Java, PHP, LISP, Javascript, and several other less well-known lanugages. Probably for that reason, I thought it was kind of a slow read. However, I think it would be a great book for people with no prior programming experience. It would make a great textbook along with Thomas's book. Personally, I much prefer a clear, verbose style than a terse style that assumes a lot of prior knowledge. I read this book after Dave Thomas's book, but I recommend reading this FIRST (or closely along side of it).

A great book for Newcomers

The book's preface indicated that the author is well versed in Ruby, and that he got into Rails when it was brand new. It sounded like he was in a position to teach the subject matter well, and I really liked his angle: Rails was written in Ruby, and Rails extends Ruby... you really cannot fully utilize Rails without learning Ruby, and this book teaches you all about Ruby, with an eye on Rails. Perfect! There are four parts to the book. The first part is an introduction which explained how Ruby works, how Rails works, and why it's important for Rails developers to have a good handle on the Ruby programming language. This was more detail than I had gotten in my online reading, and not so much detail that my head blew up immediately. A real plus. Also in the first section, we walked through the beginning of the development process for a simple "music store" web application. This defined a context for the pieces of the Ruby puzzle that were about to be dumped on the table. The second part of the book really delved into the guts of Ruby programming. It defined objects, variables, classes, instances, constants, modules, methods, inheritance, scope, and control flow techniques. It had been 8 years since I'd done work in Java, and that was my only experience with object oriented programming. Ruby is kind of the same, but not really. The third part of the book is all about the classes and modules that are built in to Ruby. This is very important stuff, necessary in order to get a feel for what you can do (manipulations and comparisons) with different data types. And there is a lot you can do. This part also describes how arrays, hashes, and regular expressions work in Ruby. The fourth and final part of this book re-focuses on the music store application from earlier in the book. Once you've gotten a tour of Ruby, you see Rails development in a different light. Controller and model files look different when you have a feel for what you're actually looking at. With your new perspective, the author walks you through several improvements, bringing the online music store closer to reality. As a kind of a bonus, the final chapter of the book gives some techniques for learning more about Rails (and really, Ruby, too.) This is very good stuff! How do you search through the Rails code to find the section that pertains to your question? How can you more effectively search online documentation? Answers to these kinds of questions can really help a person grow, because once you become an intelligent troubleshooter, the only thing holding you back is your own level of motivation.

This book is phenomenal - you just need to know when to read it.

I am extremely pleased with this book, and I think it's because I read it at the right point in my studies of Ruby and Rails. I have no Ruby background (Java, mostly) and wanted to pick up Ruby on Rails because of how great it all sounded - sidestepping so many of the problems of JSP/ASP/PHP/etc. So, the first book I picked up was the PickAxe book, and read it pretty much from start to finish. It turns into a reference about 2/3 in, but the first part of the book is worth a straight-out read. That book gives you everything you need to get up and running with Rails, and has some brief coverage of the Ruby language, semantics, etc - enough to get you by. Between that book and some Ruby language-related websites, I could build a decently complex web app. I discovered the various helpers from ActionView and got better at building good models with ActiveRecord, and understood the overall flow of the application. I was hooked on Ruby on Rails. But, if you're like me, you eventually find some of the mystery frustrating. How does inheritence really work? Why do I see modules in some places and classes in others? How do you you make them aware of one another? When I generate a Rails app, what code is it building and where does it go? How come I can use the logger object in my controller, but my helpers can't see it? How does active record know about my database fields? The mysteries pile up and you eventually need more, but I found the general purpose Ruby book "Programming Ruby" wasn't sticking with me. It covered a ton of topics I didn't care about, and the ones I did care about I didn't realize I was supposed to, because it wasn't obvious how the Ruby in the book related to Rails. Then I picked up this book - and it was *exactly* what I was looking for. It has answered every question I've listed above, and I'm only halfway through it. I'm finding that I'm actually *understanding* what's going on with Rails under the hood. Admittedly, if I'd started into this book as a primer for Rails, or a Ruby reference, I probably would have been disappointed. But, that's not what this book is all about. This book has a very important place in the process of one's learning about Ruby and Rails. At this point in my learning, I've found it to be perfect.

Excellent intro to Ruby and Rails

My introduction to rails started with the Agile Development book, which is great, but I kept asking myself - how much of this is Ruby? and how much is specific to Rails? . Ruby for Rails provided me the answers. I really enjoyed reading this book. Even when it covered material that I already knew, it still offered a few new tips for me. I discovered a couple confusing items in the book, and I used the author's forum to ask questions. The author answered my questions, clearing things up for me. I was very impressed.

Impressive

There are many good books on Ruby, and on Rails, so many deservedly 5-star rated ones, that you'd think there'd be no room for yet another one. Until you read this one. The author covers everything about Ruby, and he has a special feel for those important, but advanced and sometimes difficult points, which you've always wanted to understand, but didn't quite grasp. His sense of humour is especially nice, because besides keeping up the reader's attention, David's elegant formulations are always to-the-point pedagogic (besides being funny). The author's claim is that you should know Ruby well in order to fully exploit Rails. Yes, after studying this book, it becomes obvious that he's right. Invest some time (hours, days, weeks, depending on your start level) on studying this book and its examples, and you'll become very proficient in Ruby (even the advanced topics), and at the same time you'll have gained a much deeper working knowledge of Rails. Highest mark on "value for money" ratio. It's probably the best computer book I've ever studied.