1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book to Learn JRuby on NetBeans, February 25, 2010
This review is from: NetBeans(TM) Ruby and Rails IDE with JRuby (Firstpress) (Paperback)
I decided to write a quick review on the NetBeans Ruby and Rails IDE with JRuby book from Apress. The book is focused on NetBeans 6.5 and JRuby development. This is not a limitation on the book however. The book is really an introduction to how to use NetBeans to do Ruby development. The latest version of NetBeans (6.8) has a number of additional features (enhancements) over the version detailed in this book. Perhaps the authors can do an up-to-date version of the book to cover the latest enhancements. If not, perhaps I will consider taking up the mantle.
I really loved the book. I would give it 4/5 stars which if you have read my reviews is a brutal rating to get.
I performed a baseline install of NetBeans 6.5 including the plugins required for doing JRuby/Ruby development as noted in the book. The book follows along perfectly with the installer and IDE. I guess you could call this book the reference to the IDE for JRuby/Ruby development.
The first chapter details the installation and configuration of the IDE. The explanation is spot on, but NetBeans is also really to install and configure.
The second chapter covers your basic "Hello World" from both a basic JRuby project and from JRuby on Rails (JRoR).
The third chapter covers configuration of JRuby using the NetBeans gem manager, setting up servers, and configuring databases for use with the development environment. The section on gems with native extensions, and replacements is very helpful.
Chapters four and five cover Ruby and Rails projects in more detail. It demonstrates a number of the capabilities that the IDE. I really like the Rails Console and example of how to use it.
Chapter six covers editing files and the capabilities that the IDE provides including code completion. This was the first real mainstream IDE to provide JRuby/Ruby code completion. It does it beautifully.
Chapter seven covers debugging and testing. The authors do a great job of explaining why NetBeans should be your choice of IDE for doing Ruby development.
JRuby itself is the topic of chapter eight. There is an example of how to use JRuby in Java projects. This is really cool. However, it should be noted that you need to make some changes for it to work on JSE5. This is noted on Page 136, but the code needs a slight modification to use JRubyScriptEngineManager instead of ScriptEngineManager.
Chapter nine covers Ruby on Rails (RoR) deployments using warbler. I have found warbler to be a great tool and use it extensively to deploy applications to GlassFish v 2.x.
Chapter ten is all about the IDE. It shows the user a number of customizations available to make NetBeans customized to your style. This is no small accomplishment. The NetBeans team have made a really great IDE and made it extremely flexible. This flexibility did not sacrifice simplicity. Eclipse is flexible too, but a a severe penalty to ease.
In summary, if you are thinking of trying JRuby, or Ruby development, and you want to give NetBeans a try, this is the book to buy 4/5 stars.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Decent rundown of NetBeans for Ruby, January 21, 2009
This review is from: NetBeans(TM) Ruby and Rails IDE with JRuby (Firstpress) (Paperback)
First, what the book is not.
As the other reviewer stated this is not a book to teach you Ruby, nor Ruby on Rails. Thus, you should either already be familiar with those topics, or have another book that covers them.
Also, while the title includes "with JRuby", the book is not limited to JRuby. The book explains how you can use other runtimes as well. The JRuby specific information in particular is Chapter 8 about integration with Java, and Chapter 9 which describe deploying to Glassfish or Tomcat.
Second, what the book is.
The book is a more-or-less tutorial style tour of NetBeans features for developing Ruby applications. I'm not sufficiently familiar with NetBeans to identify whether the coverage of features was exhaustive, but it seems that many of the key areas of development were covered: db connections, code completion, refactoring tools, running tests, and debugging.
If you have decided to use NetBeans for your Ruby work, then this book will provide you with a short & easy read with plenty of screen shots to get help you get up to speed on how to use the IDE.
Although 6.5 is the current stable version, I went through the book using NetBeans 7.0M1, and generally found everything to work as described in print.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
3.0 out of 5 stars
Missing manual, March 19, 2010
This review is from: NetBeans(TM) Ruby and Rails IDE with JRuby (Firstpress) (Paperback)
The book, as a manual, can get dated fast, however it does a good job on getting you started using NetBeans and JRuby fast. It's usefulness will be a couple of evenings and eventually a few revisits down the line. It does just what it's meant for.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
