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

~ Jeff Cohen (Author), (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

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.

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: 267 pages
• Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf; illustrated edition edition (November 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934356204
• ISBN-13: 978-1934356203
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.5 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.com Sales Rank: #295,911 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 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 (Alexandria, LA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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

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 Better than some straight Ruby on Rails only introductory books, January 8, 2009

By	Techie Evan - See all my reviews

Rails is so different from classic ASP.Net in many ways that I was skeptical this book would be worth buying, much less recommending to newbies, instead of, say, a straight Ruby on Rails (RoR) only introductory book. Now that I've finished reading it, I can say that this book explains Rails concepts better than some straight RoR only introductory books. Additionally, if you're trying to figure out how easy it would be for your Windows-only shop to integrate and deploy Rails applications into your environments, you'll be glad to know the authors have included code samples demonstrating how .Net can consume Rails services and vice-versa, and reference materials on efforts by Microsoft and others to make Windows a friendlier platform for Ruby and Rails than it has been so far. As LINQ, IronRuby, ASP.Net MVC, ADO.Net Entity Framework, and REST Support in Windows Communication Foundation become more widely adopted within the .Net community, and as work of some within the Ruby/Rails community to offer something similar to LINQ progresses, I hope there would be a follow-on edition or book to report on next steps in the evolution of these two sets of technologies. Kudos!