Ruby for Rails: Ruby Techniques for Rails Developers (Paperback)

~ David Black (Author)
Key Phrases: music store application, class definition body, nice opus, Town Hall, Ruby-informed Rails, Convention Center (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

-The word is out: with "Ruby on Rails" you can build powerful Web applications easily and quickly! And just like the Rails framework itself, Rails applications are Ruby programs. That means you can't tap into the full power of Rails unless you master the Ruby language.

"Ruby for Rails," written by Ruby expert David Black (with a forward by David Heinemeier Hansson), helps Rails developers achieve Ruby mastery. Each chapter deepens your Ruby knowledge and shows you how it connects to Rails. You'll gain confidence working with objects and classes and learn how to leverage Ruby's elegant, expressive syntax for Rails application power. And you'll become a better Rails developer through a deep understanding of the design of Rails itself and how to take advantage of it.

Newcomers to Ruby will find a Rails-oriented Ruby introduction that's easy to read and that includes dynamic programming techniques, an exploration of Ruby objects, classes, and data structures, and many neat examples of Ruby and Rails code in action. "Ruby for Rails": the Ruby guide for Rails developers!

What's Inside Classes, modules, and objects Collection handling and filtering String and regular expression manipulation Exploration of the Rails source code Ruby dynamics Many more programming concepts and techniques!

About the Author

David Black is the author of Falcon's "Ice Climbing Utah" and has published climbing and canyoneering articles in a number of magazines. He's been climbing, canyoneering, and guiding internationally since the mid 1960's. He's an ACA-certified canyoneering guide, and is currently guiding for Maui Canyon Adventures in Kahului, Hawaii. He resides in Wailuku, Maui, Hawaii.

Product Details

• Paperback: 532 pages
• Publisher: Manning Publications; illustrated edition edition (May 11, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932394699
• ISBN-13: 978-1932394696
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #423,371 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

93 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is phenomenal - you just need to know when to read it., June 21, 2006

By	Thomas O. Lianza (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am extremely pleased with this book, and I think it's because I read it at the right point in my studies of Ruby and Rails. I have no Ruby background (Java, mostly) and wanted to pick up Ruby on Rails because of how great it all sounded - sidestepping so many of the problems of JSP/ASP/PHP/etc.

So, the first book I picked up was the PickAxe book, and read it pretty much from start to finish. It turns into a reference about 2/3 in, but the first part of the book is worth a straight-out read. That book gives you everything you need to get up and running with Rails, and has some brief coverage of the Ruby language, semantics, etc - enough to get you by.

Between that book and some Ruby language-related websites, I could build a decently complex web app. I discovered the various helpers from ActionView and got better at building good models with ActiveRecord, and understood the overall flow of the application. I was hooked on Ruby on Rails.

But, if you're like me, you eventually find some of the mystery frustrating. How does inheritence really work? Why do I see modules in some places and classes in others? How do you you make them aware of one another? When I generate a Rails app, what code is it building and where does it go? How come I can use the logger object in my controller, but my helpers can't see it? How does active record know about my database fields?

The mysteries pile up and you eventually need more, but I found the general purpose Ruby book "Programming Ruby" wasn't sticking with me. It covered a ton of topics I didn't care about, and the ones I did care about I didn't realize I was supposed to, because it wasn't obvious how the Ruby in the book related to Rails.

Then I picked up this book - and it was *exactly* what I was looking for. It has answered every question I've listed above, and I'm only halfway through it. I'm finding that I'm actually *understanding* what's going on with Rails under the hood.

Admittedly, if I'd started into this book as a primer for Rails, or a Ruby reference, I probably would have been disappointed. But, that's not what this book is all about. This book has a very important place in the process of one's learning about Ruby and Rails. At this point in my learning, I've found it to be perfect.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential guide for developers moving to Ruby or Rails!, July 13, 2006

By	Ed Borasky "Applied Mathematician" (Beaverton, Oregon USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've been programming since ... well, let's just say machines with less horsepower than a cell phone cost millions of dollars back then, and Lisp and FORTRAN were just getting established as usable technologies rather than laboratory curiosities. :) For most of that time, I have been a serious student of the craft in general and programming languages in particular. I've used a number of programming languages, and I'm currently learning Ruby.

Given all of that experience, for some reason, I've really been struggling with Ruby and Rails. They are complex, intricate and intertwined in both syntax and semantics. What I needed, and what most of the other books are lacking, is a clear definition of what happens where and when. Sure, I could dig that out of the other books and learn from the source. It hasn't seemed worth the effort up to now. But "Ruby for Rails" came along and gave me exactly what I needed.

There's clear documentation on how a method is chosen to be called, how symbols work, how to explore the Rails source, how a lot of the "magic" inside Rails works, as well as the dynamic aspects of the Ruby semantics. In most of the other books, this is limited to "everything is an object" and "everything happens when the Ruby run time executes it".

Don't get me wrong -- the other books, like Programming Ruby, Agile Web Development With Rails, Rails Recipes, Enterprise Integration With Ruby and The Ruby Way, to name a few -- they are all well-written and essential references. I've got them all. But this book is the best place to start if you're an experienced programmer coming from any other language.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very Repetitive, Slow Read for New Programmers only, June 26, 2006

By	D. Mitchell (Palo Alto, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was really disappointed with this book. It got very good reviews so I bought it without ever looking inside. It says it's written for programmers from many different backgrounds, but it's really for fairly new programmers. The author repeats himself a lot and is incapable of stating things in a concise manner.

I would prefer a book that gets right to the point and highlights what's important or not intuitive. The intro section on MVC is a good example of his repetition. You find yourself thinking you're reading the same sentence several times.

You'll still learn a good amount about Ruby and Rails from this book, but if you've been programming for a while you'll be aggravated by the pace this books introduces the material.

So in short, if you are relatively new to programming, this could be a good book for you. If you are looking for a quick start this may also meet your goal, but it's done in about twice (maybe three times) as many pages as necessary.