Customer Reviews

The Art of Rails (Programmer to Programmer)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I really enjoyed this book. (Of course, I enjoy most tech books because you can always pick up new information or a different/better slant on something you thought you already knew.)
It is obvious Edward knows his stuff, and he has a knack for describing and explaining difficult concepts.
I especially liked his coverage of AJAX, Methods and Messages, Procs and Blocks, and Mixins.
Good book, Edward. Thanks for writing it!

I own most of the Ruby and RR books and was nervous to buy another. I am pleased I did after reading this book cover to cover in the Kindle edition. Since Rails and Ruby are so flexible, intermediate programmers like myself spent a lot of time researching and wondering what methods are the most appropriate for inserting javascript, testing complex stories, or implementing RESTful architectures. The author picks up each of these questions in detail, mixing well written surveys of relevant approaches with well reasoned arguments for why rails and the community are moving in one direction and not another. Bravo! I am a much better Rails developer as a result of this book. The Kindle edition has some minor formatting glitches (they need to get their fixed font code formatting settled down especially) but was eminently readable.

The Art of Rails is a phenomenal follow-on book for anyone who has completed a beginner Ruby on Rails book and is looking for moving on to the next step. Beginner RoR books (such as Agile Web Development with Rails and online tutorials, such as Rolling with Rails) focus on the mechanisms, getting the basic feel for the capabilities of RoR to quickly build web applications.

The Art of Rails is the next step, focusing on the policy and the how. Once the basic mechanisms are taught, the natural next step is the how -- how these mechanisms can be used to best achieve the initial goals laid out by each developer. This book dives into design paradigms such as M-V-C and REST in a thorough, yet pleasantly intuitive manner that guides the developer in methods of using good design and programming principles to build more flexible and efficient web applications.

For any developer that has learned the basics of Ruby on Rails and is looking for the next step, looking to really leverage the power of Rails to build web applications, this is certainly the book that helped me complete that progression.

This is not a 'cookbook'.
It does not cover installation of Rails on Windows - or Linux.
It is not a reference.
It does not cover any of the IDE's available for Ruby and Rails.

So what does it do?

When I first got the book, I thumbed through it - and wondered - Where is the code!?.

It has some code samples, but what I saw is not something that will 'build' a sample app - nope. At first I was bummed.

Then I started reading the book.

It became obvious very quickly the guy knew exactly what he was talking about - not just Rails - but the big picture of software development and how Rails utilizes (hence you utilize) application modeling, design specs, MVC, REST and Ajax, testing - among other topics.

But none of that is Rails you say?

Well, yeah, you are right.

But it's all the stuff around Rails and Rails is built to handle.

Bottom Line? He puts you into the 'mindset' to solve problems with Rails.

The actual details, he leaves to other books. But with this book, you'll have a grasp on how to go about handling problems with Rails.

And that was worth the entry price - and the time to read and comprehend.

If you want to just 'jump in and code' - then maybe this book isn't for you. If you want to 'get your head around' Rails - the philosophy - then start coding - then spend the time and read this book.

Glad I got it. No, you cannot have my copy - it's too marked up anyway.

Cheers.

The Art of Rails not only a great Rails book, but it is a great web development book. It's first chapter should be read by every web developer. It clearly explains how the web started, the choices that were made, and where it is today.

These types of broad insights are what you'd expect from a top CS curriculum. The kind of insights that explain why you are doing what you doing, instead of just how.

I just wish I read this book when I first started programming for the web.

This is a good choice for a second book after reading Agile Web Development With Rails. The book is short and easy to read. Illustrates some history, MVC, AJAX, and Rubyisms in Rails.

The first chapter is particularly valuable to less experienced or younger readers that never felt the pain of old Web development paradigms. I haven't found a nice concise explanation of the history of Web development in any other book.

Chapters 2 - 6 will be of limited value to anyone who has built a RESTful Rails application.

Chapter 7, on Ajax, does a nice job of describing five general architectural patterns using AJAX.

Chapters 8 - 10 provides examples of Ruyisms like blocks, procs, mixins and metaprogramming. It doesn't go super-deep, but places the topics before you in a simple manner.

The author makes an attempt to season the writing with a side story, inspired by the likes of _why. Instead of being entertaining, it just ends up being rather weird. But, it's easy to ignore.

Good Rails book. I'd read this in between the Prag Prog book and Obie's Rails Way.

I did not learn anything new about rails reading this book and I am not a rails expert. This book examines different aspects of rails at a very high level. I already knew about all the ideas he discusses, and he doesn't discuss any of the ideas in enough detail to be truly useful in application. All in all, get this book if you need help understanding rails at a high level or you want a lightweight design book. For those who want to take their rails developing to the next level, look elsewhere.

In all fairness, the book is very well written. I am disappointed with the book because I was hoping to learn more about rails and not necessarily design and the book definitely does not deliver any sort of useful in depth rails coverage.