Ruby on Rails For Dummies

by Barry Burd

Book Overview

Quickly create Web sites with this poweful tool Use this free and easy programming language for e-commerce sites and blogs If you need to build Web and database applications quickly but you don't... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470081201
• ISBN13: 9780470081204
• Release Date: December 2006
• Publisher: For Dummies
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Ruby on Rails

I needed a jumpstart to learing more about Ruby on Rails and this book was the answer. Although most of the software listed is outdated, I easily converted the instructions to apply to the new software. It was a great tool and assisted me in my search for a better web design tool.

Ruby On Rails for Dummies

This book is prepared in a way that can be understood by beginner programmers at the same time, it teaches the foundation of Ruby programming. I like the resourcefulness of the author. He was very helpful and accessible for every problem I have encountered

Great Intro, Great Author

I work in the IT world, but knew nothing about RoR and just wanted enough of an overview to build a simple application that I had conceived. The book fit my needs perfectly. My one gripe was that the book referenced several links for Mac-related tutorials and tools at the books website, but they did not exist. That said, my disappointment was more than compensated for when I emailed the author, Barry Burd, and he quickly responded with several helpful tips. I later found several great blogs and other web resources for getting RoR running on the Mac.

Excellent primer to Ruby, RoR, HTML and RadRails

I could not recommend RoR for Dummies more. It is an excellent book to a person who is looking for what I was looking for: a cohesive intro into RoR. I am not a programmer and I need to learn how to develop online application, i.e. database driven website (rather than static one using HTML and CSS alone) for our business. After thorough looking around I decided to go ahead and jump on Ruby, and ride the Rails (the framework within which online applications using Ruby language are built). The package is playfully called Ruby on Rails, shortly RoR (the book also explains how this name originated). I chose RoR over other available tools out there like PHP, C# in MS Visual Studio or Java with Struts, and others for the sheer beauty of Ruby. [...] RoR for Dummies is a bit more than an intro into RoR. It is a succinct primer for the Ruby programming language itself, Rails framework, HTML(!) and RadRails. RadRails is one of the available RoR's IDEs - Integrated Development Environment. IDE refers to a software that integrates working with all the essential parts of RoR in one place (namely Ruby, Rails, HTML, CSS, and some database (MySQL is the 'native' database in RoR). Very much like 'word processor' refers to a software for writing and formatting text documents. There are also a few paragraphs on databases spread around the book which I found very useful and informative. The book does not delve into CSS, which is understandable; CSS - albeit syntactically very simple - is a powerful formatting tool that can swiftly become challenging animal to tame if one leaves arena of coloring fonts and backgrounds. CSS is a subject matter of plethora of books. All of the parts necessary for work in RoR are available free of charge for immediate download and use. For a novice, this may seem a daunting task but RoR for Dummies guides reader through the download and installation of all of the parts safely and painlessly. I had no problem installing any of them following the instructions in the book (running Windows XP). The book is written in such a way that if one knows nothing about any of the topics (I think so, I cannot say about myself that I know nothing about these things), one can still proceed chapter by chapter and get all things done. There were only a handful of points in the book where I felt it was necessary to look elsewhere for additional explanations. And that was simply because I am a curious person and want to know the why's. The book is also quite funny at times. Of course that I have a slew of other books to go through in order to get efficient in using RoR. But again, I feel, that RoR for Dummies did excellent job in introducing me to the entire fleet of technologies involved in building an online application using Ruby, Rails, and HTML (the three covered topics). On the margin, I have a good working knowledge of HTML and CSS. I have some knowledge of Ruby, as I am learning Ruby on my own (I have taken courses on Visual Basic and P

A gentle introduction to Ruby on Rails

First I want to make clear who this book is for an who it isn't. If you are a real programmer, not someone like me with just a smattering of PHP and JavaScript, you will find this book entirely too basic. It is a true Dummies book, an introduction not a complete course. If you tried the Ruby on Rails (RoR) bible, Agile Web Development with Rails, and found it a bit over your head, you should find this an kinder and gentler primer. Ruby on Rails for Dummies assumes absolutely no prior programming experience. It doesn't even assume any command line knowledge. It does assume a decent grounding in HTML and CSS, but that's true of any web based programming book. Going directly from a visual web layout tool to RoR will be too big a leap. It would be like trying to complete a 10 K run after practicing by jogging a mile three times a week for a month or so. You might get through it but the process would be more than a bit painful. But if you have your hand coding chops but no real programming background you should find this book a gentle introduction to Ruby on Rails. It made a number of ideas clear that the Agile book assumed I was already familiar with. It provides a nice quick start to RadRails, a free RoR development environment, which somewhat insulates you from the straight command line approach taken my more advanced RoR texts and provides a pre-packaged Ruby on Rails development environment. There is also a short introduction to the Ruby programming language. It's very basic but probably helpful. Ruby on Rails for Dummies proceeds step-by-step through a couple of very simple RoR applications. It's enough to get your feet wet and make more advanced books approachable. It does not provide enough of a knowledge base to actually go out and start developing web applications. You'll still need to get a more advanced book but at least you will have a decent foundation on which to build.