Rails for .NET Developers (Facets of Ruby) [Paperback]

Jeff Cohen (Author), Brian Eng (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1934356204 | ISBN-13: 978-1934356203 | Publication Date: December 5, 2008 | Edition: 1

Learning a new language and a new framework can be daunting. What you need is a guide to help leverage your existing knowledge and skills, and show you just what you need to know to get up and running with a new system quickly.

You're already a .NET developer; we'll help you get up and running as a Ruby on Rails developer on any operating system: Windows, Mac, or Linux. We start with a gentle introduction to the object-oriented Ruby language with examples and direct comparisons to C#, so you'll quickly feel at home writing Ruby code for the first time.

We then get to the heart of Rails development by showing how to tackle everyday tasks in Rails compared with typical ASP.NET implementations, with a tutorial focus. You'll build a sample airline reservation system using Rails, learning essential techniques along the way. You'll come to learn the joy and power inherent in the "convention over configuration" philosophy, the natural elegance of the MVC architecture, and the essence of REST-based design as you develop applications that accommodate web browsers, handheld devices, and even XML web service clients with unparalleled ease.

Along the way, you'll see good agile development practices, explore test-driven development with Rails. You'll be prepared for real-world application deployment, and we'll give you a taste of how Ruby and Rails are reshaping the Microsoft application landscape, including a look at IronRuby.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jeff Cohen has worked with object-oriented programming languages and Microsoft application frameworks for more than 15 years. A former MCSD, he is now a Ruby on Rails core contributor. He is the founder of Purple Workshops and conducts training classes for agile software teams. Jeff is also a senior software engineer at Leapfrog Online.Brian Eng is the founder of Bluebuzzard, a provider of web-based sales solutions for the hospitality industry, and a freelance Ruby on Rails developer and consultant. He has 12 years of software development experience, the last 3 with Rails, and is an MCSD for Microsoft .NET.Jeff and Brian write about their transition from .NET technologies to Rails on their blog, Softies on Rails (http://softiesonrails.com).

Product Details

• Paperback: 277 pages
• Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf; 1 edition (December 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934356204
• ISBN-13: 978-1934356203
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,134,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Resource for .Net Developers Wanting to Learn Rails, October 24, 2008

By 

Taylor Smith (Oxford, MS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rails for .NET Developers (Facets of Ruby) (Paperback)

I've spent the last 4 years developing web applications in the Microsoft .Net framework. After hearing about rails for the past year or so I've tried getting up and going on my own but Rails is such a different beast than .Net I've always gotten frustrated. Being a .Net developer, I'm working on a Windows machine and I've very familiar with how .Net applications are developed and deployed, not so much with the *nix systems and deployment prevalent in the Rails community.

Enter Jeff and Brian's book.

I loved the way they contrasted Rails and .Net with code from each showing a single topic. It really helped me walk through what was happening in a language I was familiar with and still get the ideas behind the Rails conventions. Also their focus on a windows development environment helped tremendously in the initial install process.

I can see now that the hardest part of all is going to be learning Ruby and they did a great job giving an intro to the language and syntax to someone not familiar with dynamically typed languages.

I've already recommended this book to co-workers and for my boss to buy a copy for the office. Its definitely a resource I plan on referring to during my upcoming development projects.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Also good for Rails developers that need to work with .NET folks, March 23, 2009

By 

Chris McAvoy (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rails for .NET Developers (Facets of Ruby) (Paperback)

I'm a software developer who uses Rails frequently to complete projects, so I'm not _exactly_ the target audience for this book, however, I recently had to work with on a Rails project with a handful of .NET developers. This book helped me better understand where they were coming from, and helped us all communicate more effectively.

The Rails app that we collaborated on ultimately ran on Linux, but was backed by SQL Server. The process of learning one another's platforms would have been significantly more difficult without this book guiding the .NET devs and myself on each other's platforms. Great book!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable Resource for Fledgling .NET -> Rails Developer, November 17, 2008

By 

Michael Leung (New York, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rails for .NET Developers (Facets of Ruby) (Paperback)

When I jumped the proverbial .NET ship to the wonderful world of open source development with Ruby on Rails, there wasn't a resource even half as beneficial as this excellent book.

Jeff and Brian do a great job of explaining the most essential topics required to create real world Rails applications, and they do it with you, the .NET developer in mind. They cover the whole gamut of Rails development, and as such you'll be up and running with Rails in no time. I think the most valuable part of this book is the "here's how you'd do it in .NET, and here's how you do it in Rails" side of things. Really helps to solidify the concepts.

Rails for .NET Developers is chock full of great, usable code examples that should greatly expand your Rails toolkit in no time flat. This is a must have book if you're interested in learning the excellent Ruby on Rails framework, and the Ruby language itself. Order it now.