Pro Active Record: Databases with Ruby and Rails (Paperback)

by Kevin Marshall (Author), Chad Pytel (Author), Jon Yurek (Author)
Key Phrases: active record, position column values, recording certain actions, Unit Test, Active Resource, Kevin Marshall (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Pro Active Record helps you take advantage of the full power of your database engine from within your Ruby programs and Rails applications. ActiveRecord, part of the magic that makes the Rails framework so powerful and easy to use, is the model element of Rails model/view/controller framework. Its an object-relational mapping library enabling you to interact with databases from both Ruby and Rails applications.

Because ActiveRecord is configured with default assumptions that mesh perfectly with the Rails framework, Rails developers often find they hardly need think about it at all. However, if you are developing in Ruby without Rails, or are deploying against legacy databases designed without Rails in mind, or you just want to take advantage of database-specific features such as large objects and stored procedures, you need the in-depth knowledge of ActiveRecord found in this book.

In Pro Active Record, authors Kevin Marshall, Chad Pytel, and Jon Yurek walk you through every step from the basics of getting and installing the ActiveRecord library to working with legacy schema to using features specific to each of todays most popular database engines, including Oracle, MS SQL, MySQL, and more! You’ll come to a deep understanding of ActiveRecord that will enable you to truly exploit all that Ruby, Rails, and your chosen database platform have to offer.

About the Author

Kevin Marshall is a software developer at heart. He is a consultant to a number of companies and currently runs 50+ sites of his own�many of which are now happily taking advantage of ActiveRecord with the Ruby on Rails framework, including the popular Draftwizard.com. As a technology writer, Kevin has published a short article, �Web Services with Rails�; contributed a few recipes to the Ruby Cookbook; and contributed a number of articles to the Association of Computing Machinery�s periodical, Computing Reviews (available online at www.reviews.com).

Kevin is also a member of the Pro Football Writers Association, the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, and the Fantasy Sports Writers Association. When he�s not deep into coding, building content, or talking football, he�s generally off playing with his sons. To learn more about what he�s up to right now, you can visit his company site, falicon.com, or just drop him a note at [e-mail].

Chad Pytel is president of thoughtbot, inc. a software development consulting firm that specializes in agile, test-driven web application development using the Ruby on Rails framework located in Boston, MA, and New York, NY. A firm believer in the Model-View-Controller design pattern and realistic software development, with a history in Java and EJB development, Chad strongly believes that Ruby and Ruby on Rails represents a new, exciting, and better way to develop software.

Chad lives with his wife in Somerville, MA. When not at the office managing projects and writing code, Chad enjoys acting in and producing theater, film, and improv comedy. To follow along with Chad and the rest of the thoughtbot team's thoughts on business, design, development, and technology, visit their blog at giantrobots.thoughtbot.com.

Jon Yurek is CTO at thoughtbot, inc. Born a programmer, Jon has been developing software professionally since 1999. After seeing the elegant and expressive power of Ruby, Jon quickly moved all new development at thoughtbot away from Java and Perl to using Ruby and Rails.

Jon is a graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute and currently lives in Somerville, MA.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Apress (September 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590598474
• ISBN-13: 978-1590598474
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #222,942 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing and mis-titled, October 24, 2007

By	James Stewart (Grand Rapids, MI, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Right at the start of Pro Active Record the authors address a possible problem some may have with it: that there's not enough in Active Record to warrant a full book. They point out that the basics are well covered as sections elsewhere but that this is the first book to really dig into working with legacy schema and other `advanced' uses. That's fair enough, but after reading the book I am still left with the question of why, then, they dedicate the first half to covering ActiveRecord's most basic concepts?

Judging from postings on the rails email list, there's certainly a lot of confusion about ActiveRecord, associations, observers, how to work with legacy table names and primary keys, and so on. But in a book with a title prefix of "Pro" I was expecting to jump straight into the nitty gritty of topics like compound/composite primary keys and performance tuning, probably with some real world examples, and maybe with a serious exploration of AR's internals. As it is, such topics only get a quick treatment in the final chapter (the compound/composite primary keys section is a paragraph referring users to a plugin).

It's almost always instructive reading other developers' code and it would be unfair to claim that I didn't spot a couple of tips that may prove useful, but they were passing things. And sometimes I found myself wondering what happened to the tech review process, particularly in the coverage of the has_one association, where not only is the variable naming confusing, but they seem to be calling the each method on a single ActiveRecord instance.

I'm left wondering what the audience is for this book. The title and blurbs suggest it's pitched at people who want to go deeper into ActiveRecord than they have before, but the content is better suited for someone with some database experience who wants to pick up ActiveRecord to write some scripts. As it is, if you've worked with ActiveRecord before your time will be better spent writing plugins and exploring the internals for yourself, and if you've not you'll get most of the same material from a decent Rails book and some time exploring.

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this book for review by the publisher.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not so "pro"., November 12, 2007

By	J. Pease (Odessa, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Visuals:
Font size and layout are good. Easy on the eyes. Large and frequent sub-headings make it easier to locate information.

Audience:
The book lists it's intended "User level" at "Intermediate-Advanced".

Practicality:
It really depends on what you are expecting. I've been using Rails and ActiveRecord for about 2 years, so I should fit into the target audience. After reading the book I still think it will be a great reference book to have within arm's reach while working with ActiveRecord. To me it will serve as an API to AR. So it will be practical in that sense.

On the other hand, while reading it I never experienced any "aha!" moments where I felt like I learned something new or exciting, which I had hoped for from a "Pro" book.

If you are a beginner (never having used AR) it will definitely save you time (and eye strain) hunting down tutorials on blogs.

Overall:
It's a good Active Record reference & usage tutorial(s). I would have appreciated this book even more when I was first starting to use the Ruby on Rails framework. So if you are a beginner, don't let the "Intermediate - Advanced" user level scare you off. If you are using Rails, even as a beginner, you will probably be using Active Record too. In fact I think this book would probably be better named "Beginning Active Record" instead of "Pro Active Record".

I was kind of surprised when I read the Introduction to the book that it starts off with:

"Is there really enough to talk about in Active Record to fill a whole book?"

"Our answer, then and now, is, "Yes and no""

As an "Intermediate - Advanced" user, that's kind of how I felt at the end of this "Pro" book.

I give the book 4 stars, with the assumption that you go into it with the expectation of "Beginning Active Record".

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent intro and extremely useful for work with legacy databases, October 4, 2007

By	A. Molinaro - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

No fear of the legacy database!

Excellent book overall, but Chapter 7 is what takes the cake for me.
It's generally considered a pain to use ROR with legacy databases, but
K.Marshall et al, show that it is not only doable, but not bad at all.

Excellent examples and explanations, showing code in a step by step approach - starting at the very beginning (what active record is, configuring/installing it, etc...).

At the same time, the style is extremely laid back (at times the authors poke a bit of fun at each other), which is always welcomed when learning something new.

Great book and great choice to include information on getting active record working with legacy databases.