Agile Web Development with Rails: A Pragmatic Guide (Pragmatic Programmers)
ASIN: 097669400X
Average Customer Review: 4.5, based on 101 reviews.
Customer reviews (5 of 101)
I recommend it, 2008-05-11, Rating: 5.
I love the framework, the Agile philosophy and I love how the book is structured: straightforward, practical, easy to follow, programmer-oriented.
I truly recommend it for anyone willing to begin in the Rails universe.
I truly recommend it for anyone willing to begin in the Rails universe.
Don't buy this book, 2008-05-07, Rating: 1.
It does not reflect the current state of Rails at this time. A new version is supposed to come out in October 2008 that covers 2.0. If you get this version you will need to switch to an older version of Rails, otherwise you'll only get about 68 pages in before the examples stop working.
Great great great book!, 2008-04-05, Rating: 5.
This is classics!
I started reading it just to know what is Rails. I ended reading with absolutely involved and loving it!
I started reading it just to know what is Rails. I ended reading with absolutely involved and loving it!
Great Reference, 2008-03-26, Rating: 4.
I didn't know that Rails 2.0.2 does a few things differently than described in the book. Overall, however, I found it to be a great reference, and with a little help from Google and friendly souls who write online tutorials, I was able to create my own application while reading rather than following the example in the book.
I found the explanations on RESTful development somewhat terse and incomplete. However, the treatment of database access is very thorough. I did find it very useful to have my Ruby book nearby.
If this is the version you have installed, I'm sure there will soon be a new edition covering Rails 2.0.2, and given how much the technology is still in flux, it's probably worth waiting for it.
I found the explanations on RESTful development somewhat terse and incomplete. However, the treatment of database access is very thorough. I did find it very useful to have my Ruby book nearby.
If this is the version you have installed, I'm sure there will soon be a new edition covering Rails 2.0.2, and given how much the technology is still in flux, it's probably worth waiting for it.
Great place to start with Rails, 2008-02-23, Rating: 4.
As you can tell from the other reviews, this is a great place to start learning Ruby on Rails, especially if you are new to programming and do not have an extensive background with more than one language/technology.
Developers with a strong background in one (or more) web based technologies/languages/frameworks will find this a little too light at first (the example application - depot), but will learn more in the tutorial reference portion (second half of book) where the authors focus on what exactly is Rails.
Not a lot about Ruby the language, but if you have a strong background in Perl or Python it is not too far of a stretch. I have not found a great Ruby book just yet, so I cannot offer advice on that one.
If you have a strong web programming background then you will most likely want to get something like this...
The Rails Way (Addison-Wesley Professional Ruby Series)
The big pain now will be that Rails 2.0 has been released and the tutorial will frustrate newbies (nothing wrong with that, we are all new at some point) as several commands no longer work as they did in Rails 1.0+ and without a good knowledge of the environment you will be stumped. Fortunately, there is a copy of the depot application in an online tutorial format (http://fairleads.blogspot.com/2007/12/rails-20-and-scaffolding-step-by-step.html) that will aid some of those that get stumped by the tutorial until the 3rd edition comes out and covers Rails 2.0+.
Once you get up and running on Rails and want to build some cool apps, then check out another book by the Pragmatic Programmers publisher Rails Recipes (Pragmatic Programmers)
Developers with a strong background in one (or more) web based technologies/languages/frameworks will find this a little too light at first (the example application - depot), but will learn more in the tutorial reference portion (second half of book) where the authors focus on what exactly is Rails.
Not a lot about Ruby the language, but if you have a strong background in Perl or Python it is not too far of a stretch. I have not found a great Ruby book just yet, so I cannot offer advice on that one.
If you have a strong web programming background then you will most likely want to get something like this...
The Rails Way (Addison-Wesley Professional Ruby Series)
The big pain now will be that Rails 2.0 has been released and the tutorial will frustrate newbies (nothing wrong with that, we are all new at some point) as several commands no longer work as they did in Rails 1.0+ and without a good knowledge of the environment you will be stumped. Fortunately, there is a copy of the depot application in an online tutorial format (http://fairleads.blogspot.com/2007/12/rails-20-and-scaffolding-step-by-step.html) that will aid some of those that get stumped by the tutorial until the 3rd edition comes out and covers Rails 2.0+.
Once you get up and running on Rails and want to build some cool apps, then check out another book by the Pragmatic Programmers publisher Rails Recipes (Pragmatic Programmers)
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