Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action

Book Description

Prototype and Scriptaculous are libraries that extend standard Ajax. They make it easier to program Ajax and provide powerful features like drag and drop and animation. In this book, developers learn by playing and see how the libraries work in the real world.

As experience with Ajax increases, developers want the standard Ajax capabilities they repeatedly use to be preprogrammed for them--and that's exactly what Ajax libraries do for them. They reduce the pain of handling cross-browser inconsistencies, they add useful language features, and provide sophisticated functionality. Of these, Prototype is the most popular JavaScript and Ajax framework for low-level user interface features such as animation, drag and drop, and pre-built widgets. Together, they free the developer up to concentrate on building the application. They make a rich user experience easy to achieve.

This book guides the reader through the Prototype and Scriptaculous libraries feature-by-feature. In just 350 pages, readers will find over 100 small working examples to help them explore the libraries. As well, they will develop a web-based image gallery that teacher them how to use Prototype and Scriptaculous in the real-world.

Customer Reviews:

Exactly what I hoped for, and more.......2007-10-11

I'm not even halfway through this book yet and I'm already satisfied with my purchase. I look forward to reading about Scriptaculous, but to me the book is already worth it for (a) the treatment of JavaScript in general and the details on object-oriented JavaScript, JSON, and especially JavaScript prototypes and function closures, (b) Prototype, especially how prototype extends JavaScript itself by modifying various object prototypes, and (c) AJAX, including historical perspective, details and gotchas of AJAX request/response versus traditional GET or POST via browser, and the utilities Prototype offers to ease AJAX communication. Additionally, I know this book will make a great reference for it's coverage of the DOM basics and it's appendices on HTTP basics and traffic. There's even some useful contrasting of different server-side options (PHP versus servlets/JSP, etc.) I don't mean to sound like I'm fawning over this book but it's exactly what I hoped to find after working for the first time with all these technologies on a recent project; I wish I'd had this book during that project.

Top-notch tome.......2007-06-25

Javascript has exploded onto the web development scene in the last few years, and powers much of the web 2.0 and Ajax revolution. Every web developer now needs to know how to do common Ajax tasks. Thankfully, Prototype and Scriptaculous In Action makes it both easy and enjoyable.

This is a comprehensive book. The size (510 pages) was initially intimidating, but Prototype and Scriptaculous In Action is exceedingly well written and a genuine pleasure to read. The thorough and thoughtful organization of the book provides some real structure to the discussion, making complex subjects easily digestible. This is the defacto bible of Prototype and Scriptaculous, and these days I turn to this book more than anything else on my shelf.

The book is divided up into four multi-chapter parts, any of which could stand on it's own as a definitive guide. The chapters are full of useful examples, and there's strong emphasis given to migrating existing sites to Prototype and Scriptaculous, which is a major plus. You could turn to any section of the book and immediately see how to inject some new behavior into your existing application, but if you take the time to read from cover-to-cover you'll be rewarded with some deep understanding of both the libraries and Javascript itself.

I'll summarize the four parts of the book:

Part 1, Getting Started, introduces the Prototype and Scriptaculous libraries, focusing heavily on Prototype and Ajax. There's a lot of information on re-designing an existing site for Ajax. Two full chapters are devoted to Prototype's Ajax features. You can get up and running VERY quickly after glancing through these chapters. There's also a lot of depth, and consideration is given to the pervasive effects Ajax has on architectural issues and the new ways that an application will have to manage HTTP traffic.

Part 2, Scriptaculous Quickly, covers effects, controls and drag-n-drop. This is hands-down the best Scriptaculous documentation currently available, anywhere. The core effects are explored and tweaked, and there's lot of very practical examples demonstrating some of the niftiest stuff, like running effects in parallel versus sequentially. And the drag-and-drop coverage is incredibly clear, making it easy, almost trivial, to implement. The Scriptaculous coverage is indispensable, and you'll return to it again and again if you implement Scriptaculous-enabled pages.

Part 3, Prototype in Depth, explores Prototype's Javascript-oriented features. There's a fantastic chapter on functions contexts, and the discussion of closures is one of the best I've seen. There's a lot of information about Javascript fundamentals, and how Prototype can be used to implement inheritance, address arrays, and manipulate the DOM in the browser.

And finally, Part 4 Advanced Topics, has two unrelated chapters. The first chapter overhauls an example app, giving it a Prototype and Scriptaculous makeover. The last chapter is about integration with Ruby on Rails. Prototype was initially written as the Ajax interface to Rails, so there's some strong integration.

As a long-time enterprise web developer, dealing with Javascript has always been a chore. But now I actually (gasp) look forward to tasks that involve Javascript. I'm a convert, and I have Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action to thank.

Excellent.......2007-05-22

I wrote a longer review that Amazon has apparently lost. Oh well. This is an excellent book, very well written. The authors are the rarest kind of technical author: they can actually construct prose that is pleasant to read, not deadly boring, but which works well as a reference book later. The book's organized thoughtfully--it's certainly much more than just an API reference. There's also quite a lot of general advanced Javascript information here, too.

There's at least one other book on these libraries in production from Pragmatic Programmers. If you're considering that, I strongly suggest downloading the sample chapters of both books and comparing. The Crane book is much more appealing to me (not to mention it's available now, not in six months).

Basic libraries coverage with a good example application........2007-04-19

This book lacked detailed coverage of the programming techniques and advanced topics of prototype and scriptaculous. The authors covered the basics by discussing only the API's of the libraries (more attention was given to scriptaculous API's, even though its usage is obvious and prototype API's are more extensive). With 500 pages and the libraries as the title, I expected details about the inner workings of the API's and discussions about its usages/ applications. Instead, 150 pages were devoted to verbose repetitive coverage of scriptaculous' API, which could easily have fitted into 50 pages at most. ALL of the info on scriptaculous could easily have been read online at its wiki site - the book provided no further insight (ch. 5 is especially useless)! Prototype's coverage was decent, but lacked details on several parts of its API. Although prototype and scriptaculous are tightly integrated with Rails, there was only 1 chapter devoted to its discussion, which served more like an overview than a usage guide. Based on content on the libraries alone, I would give this book 3 stars. However, if you're in need of an example application, then it may deserve 4 stars. This book provides a good example of applying prototype's ajax and scriptaculous web 2.0 techniques to a photo gallery website. It shows the advantages these libraries have over plain javascript and dhtml. The extra 100 pages wasted on scriptaculous would better serve Rails' RJS templates or a more complete/ thorough discussion of prototype. Of course it can be argued that the book is not titled, "Prototype, Scriptaculous, and Rails in Action," but it should be.

Average customer rating:

Practical book for working programmers.
Love the recipie format
Essential once you start building your first app
Will reach both programmers and serious programming libraries.
A fine collection of problems and solutions

Rails Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))
Rob Orsini
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0596527314

Book Description

Rails Cookbook is packed with the solutions you need to be a proficient developer with Rails, the leading framework for building the new generation of Web 2.0 applications. Recipes range from the basics, like installing Rails and setting up your development environment, to the latest techniques, such as developing RESTful web services.

With applications that are code light, feature-full and built to scale quickly, Rails has revolutionized web development. The Rails Cookbook addresses scores of real-world challenges; each one includes a tested solution, plus a discussion of how and why it works, so that you can adapt the techniques to similar situations. Topics include:

Modeling data with the ActiveRecord library
Setting up views with ActionView and RHTML templates
Building your application's logic into ActionController
Testing and debugging your Rails application
Building responsive web applications using JavaScript and Ajax
Ensuring that your application is security and performs well
Deploying your application with Mongrel and Apache
Using Capistrano to automate deployment
Using the many Rails plugins
Working with graphics

Whether you're new to Rails or an experienced developer, you'll discover ways to test, debug and secure your applications, incorporate Ajax, use caching to improve performance, and put your application into production. Want to get ahead of the Web 2.0 curve? This valuable cookbook will save you hundreds of hours when developing applications with Rails.

Customer Reviews:

Practical book for working programmers........2007-08-27

The "Rails Cookbook" is a very useful book for the working programmer.

Programming is all about solving problems, and that is exactly what this book is about. Each "Recipe" contains the problem, the solution and a discussion about the solution. They are concise without being too vague to be useful.

The book contains almost 200 of these problems / solutions.

This probably wouldn't be a good introduction to the language or the framework, but if you already are familiar with both - this book is a very valuable tool to help you get your work done.

Love the recipie format.......2007-06-20

Now that I've encountered a few recipies books, I have to admit I'm in love with the format. I proves very practical and much easier to use.

Essential once you start building your first app.......2007-06-08

Probably my most worn RoR book. It doesn't teach you Ruby or Rails since it's really a how-to book. I learned Ruby and Rails from other books but once I set out to build an app, I often thought to myself "now I remember reading about this somewhere, I just can't remember the syntax." Instead of digging through my other books, I thumbed through the TOC and quickly found a refresher. Well worth your money and saves you a lot of time spent on google or searching for solutions in other books.

Will reach both programmers and serious programming libraries........2007-05-08

Web programmers and practicing developers working with Rails will want this solution-oriented guide to building web 2.0 applications - a guide packed with recipes for success from the basics of installing and using Rails to the latest applications. Learn how to work with an application's logic, how to test and debit a Rails application, and use Rails plug-ins with RAILS COOKBOOK: APPLICATIONS FOR RAPID WEB DEVELOPMENT WITH RUBY, which covers version 1.2 and will reach both programmers and serious programming libraries.

A fine collection of problems and solutions.......2007-04-05

When reading the foreword of Rails Cookbook I felt a strong kinship with Zed Shaw, I too have fond memories of the first edition of Perl Cookbook and the way I relied on it once I'd taken the training wheels off. Since that one I have relied on several of the O'Reilly Cookbook series. It is only when I discard the early tutorial and dive in the deep end with a "cookbook" on my desk that I really start to learn proficiency.

I felt timorous and unsure when I finished "Agile Web Development with Rails", a marvelous tutorial that introduced me to my first real web development framework (I must have enjoyed it, I just bought the second edition). Since I have volunteered to develop a fairly large and complex web application in Rails I awaited the arrival of my copy of Rails Cookbook with hopeful anticipation and bated breath.

Rob Orsini, his fellow contributors (15 in all) and the team at O'Reilly have once again delivered. Compared to the previous titles in the series I've owned "Rails Cookbook" seems to have fewer recipes but as it is tackling an entire application framework and some serious issues, some of the solutions and discussions run a lot longer. The book is targeted at programmers who know something about web development but are early in their use of Rails, though it should be helpful to all Rails developers.

The book starts with tackling issues of installation and getting development tools installed in the first two chapters. Despite already deploying a couple of simple Rails apps I found that there was the odd useful tip in these chapters. The book then covers each of the three main sections of Rails; Active Record, Action View and Action Controller. The rest of the book goes on with large chapters on testing, Javascript, debugging, performance and hosting and deployment. Along the way it also covers REST, Action Mailer, security, plug-ins and graphics.

The extremely large section on Active Record was to me the most useful. I seem to spend an inordinate percentage of my Rails coding time with Active Record and it contains a large part of Rails power so I appreciated the size of this chapter. By contrast the chapter on graphics is almost entirely unread.

It seems obvious that this book should be compared to Pragmatic's "Rails Recipes". The first point of difference is that Rails Cookbook covers installation and setup. The second point is that is 'Recipes' covers Rails 1.1 while 'Cookbook' targets the brand new Rails 1.2. As a project fairly new on the scene Rails is a fast moving target so the six months between the two books makes a difference. Both books have excellent coverage of the various aspects of Rails, with a great deal of overlap. 'Recipes' has more, shorter pieces while 'Cookbook' tends towards longer pieces with more discussion. 'Cookbook' is also more general, with more recipes more likely to be useful in every Rails project you write.

The style is different between the two. Here Cookbook comes off second best, it feels as though tightly edited by a number of hands and ends up lacking personality; functional but cold compared to Recipes. The writing, however, is good. It's easily read, at times it feels like a good textbook. The layout is clean, it is easy to find the information you need from each recipe when you want.

With almost all "cookbook" style books I seem to be left feeling that a number of the recipes are just a little too obvious and covered well in beginner tutorials. There is some of this in Rails Cookbook, most notably the first two chapters, but overall the book will be useful to any beginner to intermediate Rails programmer. Personally I had a couple of moments where I read a tip and wanted to scream as it demonstrated and explained in a few short sentences and half a page of code what had taken me hours to discover for myself.

The "Cookbook" series all seem to be books worth the price and shelf space. This one is no exception. I'd give it three out of five with an extra half for its timely information on Rails 1.2 and would recommend it for all Rails programmers from the absolute beginner through to all but the most experienced. If you already have a copy of 'Recipes' and are happy with it then you might want to stick with that till either volume is updated for the next major revision of Rails, otherwise you will almost certainly appreciate a copy of Rails Cookbook.

Beginning Google Maps Applications with Rails and Ajax: From Novice to Professional

Average customer rating:

Not really rails oriented
Excellent Book
Building Google Maps application in Rails, get this book

Beginning Google Maps Applications with Rails and Ajax: From Novice to Professional
Andre Lewis , Michael Purvis , Jeffrey Sambells , and Cameron Turner
Manufacturer: Apress
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Accessories:

ASIN: 1590597877

Book Description

The Google Maps API remains one of the showcase examples of the Web 2.0 development paradigm. Beginning Google Maps Applications with Rails and Ajax: From Novice to Professional is the first book to comprehensively introduce the service from a developer perspective, showing you how you can integrate mapping features into your Rails-driven web applications.

Proceeding far beyond simplistic map display, you'll learn how to draw from a variety of data sources such as the U.S. Census Bureau's TIGER/Line data and Google's own geocoding feature to build comprehensive geocoding services for mapping many locations around the world.

The book also steers you through various examples that show how to encourage user interaction such as through pinpointing map locations, adding comments, and building community-driven maps. You'll want to pick up a copy of this book because

This is the first book to comprehensively introduce the Google Maps application development using the Rails development framework.
You'll be introduced to the very latest changes to the Google Maps API, embodied in the version 2 release.
It is written by four developers actively involved in the creation of location-based mapping services.

For additional info, please visit the author's reference site for this book.

Customer Reviews:

Not really rails oriented.......2007-05-25

A good guide if you are new to google maps. If you are an experienced google maps developer trying to integrate RJS or other cool rails techniques, this book is not very useful. I'm coding rails and google maps applications daily and I haven't picked this book up more than twice since receiving it.

Excellent Book.......2007-05-15

I would highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in using Google Maps with Ruby on Rails. My expectations were exceeded and I believe it lives up to its sub-title "From Novice to Professional".

I develop Rails applications and became interested in Google Maps in conjunction with a Real Estate application I was working on. In particular, I was interested using Google Maps for visual analysis of large data sets. Knowing next to nothing about the Google Maps API, I was truly at the Novice level. The book started off at the basics and quickly built on example and technique to the point where there was a working example of a problem similar in scope to mine. Along the way, the trade offs and techniques were well presented and explained in detail. Not only did I gain the knowledge and confidence to tackle my particular problem, but I was also inspired by all the other potential applications of this exciting new technology.

This book was well organized and written. I was obvious that the authors had worked through the examples and I especially appreciated many of the best practices and hints they gave. Chapter 7 "Optimizing and Scaling for Large Data Sets" was particularly interesting for me and my application. It included code and examples for several server-side and client-side techniques and as well as a clear explanation of their uses and trade offs.

If you are a Rails coder and you want to master Google Maps, this is a must have book

Building Google Maps application in Rails, get this book.......2007-05-01

I was worried when I ordered this book that it would just be a reference book of the Google Maps API, but thankfully I was wrong. This book is an excellent reference to anyone wanting to build a Google Maps enabled Rails Application.

The first four chapters take you through building an application, similar to the author's hotspotr application where a user can save Wifi hotspot information. For many people this may be all they are looking for, a way to create maps, save information and geocode addresses.

Chapters 5-8 deal with larger datasets and the example they use is from the FCC Antenna Structure Registration, which has 120k records already geocoded for you. It then takes you through different presentation methods. If you want to see the output, go to book dot earthcode dot com chapter seven, server custom tiles. It's a very impressive result, similar to the pictures of earth at night.

The rest of the book gives other advanced uses and apis, I have not read all the way through that but it looks interesting. The other thing I like about the tone of the book is the conversational style. For example in Chapter 5 where they are using the FCC dataset they talk about the advantages of using a mysql import instead of going through the ActiveRecord layer, resulting in importing the data in less than a minute compared to 1.5 hours with ActiveRecord. This is the type of information that usually only comes from time spent trying different methods, so it's nice for us to be able to leverage their hard work.

In general I have been impressed with the Apress books ( no pun intended) them and Pragmatic Programmers have really started giving O'Reilly a run for their money.

Average customer rating:

Very Nice but not for everyone
Gentle Introduction to Ruby on Rails for the Experienced Java Developer
If you know Java and are curious about Rails, buy this book.
Excellent overview of Rails ~and~ Java technologies
Attention Java Developers - A Must Read Book!

Rails for Java Developers
Stuart Halloway , and Justin Gehtland
Manufacturer: Pragmatic Bookshelf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 097761669X

Book Description

Many Java developers are now looking at Ruby, and the Ruby on Rails web framework. If you are one of them, this book is your guide. Written by experienced developers who love both Java and Ruby, this book will show you, via detailed comparisons and commentary, how to translate your hard-earned Java knowledge and skills into the world of Ruby and Rails.

If you are a Java programmer, you shouldn't have to start at the very beginning! You already have deep experience with the design issues that inspired Rails, and can use this background to quickly learn Ruby and Rails. But Ruby looks a lot different from Java, and some of those differences support powerful abstractions that Java lacks. We'll be your guides to this new, but not strange, territory.

In each chapter, we build a series of parallel examples to demonstrate some facet of web development. Because the Rails examples sit next to Java examples, you can start this book in the middle, or anywhere else you want. You can use the Java version of the code, plus the analysis, to quickly grok what the Rails version is doing. We have carefully cross-referenced and indexed the book to facilitate jumping around as you need to.

Thanks to your background in Java, this one short book can cover a half-dozen books' worth of ideas:

Programming Ruby

Building MVC (Model/View/Controller) Applications

Unit and Functional Testing

Security

Project Automation

Configuration

Web Services

Customer Reviews:

Very Nice but not for everyone.......2007-07-07

I had started this book awhile ago, but then got distracted with various things and left it. I recently started reading it again and just finished it.
I have been puzzled by the relatively lower ranking of this book in the Amazon sales rankings compared to other Ruby/Ruby on Rails books. What is even more puzzling is the fact that amlost everyone who has bothered to write a review has given it full five starts including myself. Here is my guess on why is it so (I may be wrong):
This book assumes certain experience, skill set, knowledge, and sophistication on the reader's part. This means that the person should have a good deal of Java and more importantly J2EE knowledge and real-world experience both as a developer and architect. Unless one has suffered through the baggage that goes with "Enterprise Java", it is very hard to understand and appreciate what the authors are trying to say. Merely having played with J2EE/Java is not sufficient to enjoy this book and get something out of it. You have to lived through at least one complete life-cycle of a typical J2EE project to appreciate the fine points that the authors are making in this book.
One thing is clear to me: even though they try very hard to maintain a neutral posture throughout the book, given a choice, they would rather code Ruby and RoR than Java and J2EE (who wouldn't?).
If you have the necessary experience, knowledge, and skills; then the book becomes very useful. I have particularly enjoyed the later chapters of the book dealing with Testing, Rake, Web Services, and Security.
I hope that they continue to "push" the boundaries of Ruby on Rails knowledge and share it with the rest of us in their excellent writing style.

Gentle Introduction to Ruby on Rails for the Experienced Java Developer.......2007-05-20

In "Rails for Java Developers", Stuart Halloway and Justin Gehtland provide an introduction to Ruby and the Rails web application framework aimed at the Java developer more familiar with frameworks such as Struts and Hibernate. There's a lot of buzz in the Java community surrounding Ruby and Ruby on Rails so this title is quite timely.

Halloway and Gehtland provide a tutorial to learning Ruby and Rails by examining similarities with Java. The tutorial progresses by providing examples in both Ruby and Java using popular Java frameworks. The introduction of Ruby and Rails concepts by juxtaposing them with similar concepts implemented in Java is comforting for the developer who may feel a little intimidated by the differences between the languages. Working through the book, the Java developer will learn the basics about creating and deploying Ruby on Rails applications, picking up an exciting new language along the way.

The first three chapters introduce the Ruby programming language. This is the best Java-centric Ruby introduction that I've seen and it's something I wish I had available to me when I was first learning the language. The rest of the material covers the basics of Rails applications as well as web services and security issues. I found the chapters on testing and automating the development process to be particularly good.

The approach this book takes may not be suitable for everyone. After a certain point, I found that the constant juxtaposition of the Java way of accomplishing a task with the Ruby on Rails way of accomplishing a task wore a bit thin. I found myself just trying to skip past the Java bits to get on with the Ruby. Still, I found the book to be quite good overall. If you are an experienced Java developer seeking a gentle introduction to Ruby on Rails, you can't do better than "Rails for Java Developers".

If you know Java and are curious about Rails, buy this book........2007-04-12

Simply put, I wish that I had been able to read Stu Halloway and Justin Gehtland's Rails For Java Developers before I began on my own journey of learning Ruby and Rails after a professional life of Java development. If you are looking for a book that cuts through the hype to a commendably unbiased comparison of the web development environment in these two great languages, look no further.

With "Rails is not for everything" on the first page of the preface, the book identifies its audience as informed Java developers who haven't necessarily made up their minds about Ruby and Rails. To paraphrase the authors, however, Java programmers have lived through a lot of the struggles that Rails attempts to address. Through showing how and explaining why this is the case, this book serves as an excellent guide for those of us willing to investigate a new technology for web development.

When you buy a new car, the first step is the test drive. In the same way, Chapter 1 is like a test-drive of a "car" unlike any you've ever been in as a Java developer. The tour is as brief as possible while still exposing the reader to all of the ideas that the rest of the book fleshes out. In fact, for those who found any particular topic instantly appealing, the book provides an instant reference for where to turn next.

After any test drive invigorating enough to get you to purchase the vehicle, the dealer will often sit you in the drivers seat and point out where everything is in the unfamiliar cockpit. Chapter 2 is much the same, showing how familiar concepts in the Java language are expressed in the Ruby language. The chapter contains ten sections on topics ranging from the basics of primitive types and arrays to control flow and exception handling. This sets the stage for Chapter 3 where the authors explore those aspects of Ruby that either have no clear analogue in Java or are essentially unrecognizable.

In Chapter 4, the authors crack the hood and show you just how different Hibernate and ActiveRecord are from a developer's perspective. There are a lot of differences, and I feel this chapter will be the first that begins to give the reader an idea about whether they'll enjoy the Rails framework as a whole. The "Rails Way" begins to become visible and stands in stark contract to the choices that Hibernate makes in its own implementation. The authors' aim is to compare these two frameworks without bias, and they succeed.

A comparison of Struts and ActionController is the focus of Chapter 5. Struts' status as the lowest-common-denominator of the Java frameworks that specialize in communication with web forms led to its inclusion in this chapter. Again the authors walk through a simple example, illustrating the differences in approach. Many of Rails' optimizations towards developer simplicity come at a cost of application performance. An investigation at the end of this chapter provides an estimation of the ultimate cost of those tradeoffs.

Chapter 6 focuses on rendering HTML, where the Java developer space is somewhat more fragmented. As a result, a lot of the Java material focuses on general concepts, while the Rails material is focused on some of the most advantageous elements of the Rails stack-- specifically AJAX and RJS. I do find it to be a bit strange that the authors took the time to discuss Markaby, which, to my knowledge, is not very widely used at all.

Testing is the focus of Chapter 7. Although treatment of rcov and the "dummy objects" make this a useful section even for intermediate Rubyists, I'm a bit surprised that the authors did not focus more specifically on Rails testing. One of the central tensions in the book (and between outspoken practitioners of both languages) is the attitudes that the respective communities have towards choice. Perhaps more than in any other area, the submission to "opinionated software" reaps considerable rewards when testing Rails code.

Chapter 8 deals with the development process itself, focusing on build tools like Rake and Ant, and continuous integration tools like Cerebus and CruiseControl. The authors do not spend as much time on the inner workings of those libraries as they do on the Rails libraries. That's understandable, because uses of a build tool are myriad; this book is meant to be an introduction. If build tools and deployment are areas of interest for you, you'll likely need other resources to become more familiar with the breadth of offerings on both the Java and Ruby sides. My experience tells me that Rake is more expressive than Ant, but there's certainly a learning curve for both.

Chapter 9 concerns Web Services and XML. There are many ideas discussed in this short chapter, because this topic is getting attention in different ways among leading Ruby and Java programmers. There is a lot of enthusiasm for REST on the part of many Rails developers, and so the authors provide a brief overview of what REST is, and how Rails supports it. Java developers have to parse XML in many different contexts, and there's a lot of work that has gone into developing a useful and highly efficient stack for processing XML data. As a result, comparisons and contrasts dominate the chapter.

Chapter 10 deals with security and doesn't include too much treatment on the Java side. It seems to be a defense of Rails against some common attacks. While I do feel that's useful information, especially for any reader in a discussion with his manager, it seems that Ruby security libraries are not yet as mainstream as those of Java, such as Acegi.

If you've read this far, you should definitely buy the book.

Excellent overview of Rails ~and~ Java technologies.......2007-03-26

This is more than a typical "We love Rails!" book. Instead Justin and Stuart put their years of experience to good use and point out where Java and Ruby paradigms overlap, and how to decide which technology you should use for a particular problem. In addition to being a great introduction to the Rails arena, it's also a very good "compare and contrast" text.

If you're a Java programmer who wants to get a great overview of the Rails space, of a Java programmer who wants to get a handle on many of the Java front-end technologies, this book would be a great purchase.

Attention Java Developers - A Must Read Book!.......2007-02-24

Stu and Justin hit a sweet spot with this rails book. Unlike other Ruby and Rails books, this one specifically focuses on learning Rails, Ruby, Rake, and ActiveRecord from a Java Developer's standpoint. In my opinion there is no better way to learn Rails than the methods and techniques used in this book. Stu and Justin use practical techniques and examples thoughout the book that you can easily use to code along side the book while reading it.

The other thing I like about this book is that they cover the complete picture, not just Rails. There are chapters devoted to Ruby, ActiveRecord, Rake, security and testing - all from a Java Developer's point of view. Through this book Stu and Justin correctly point out that it doesn't have to be an either-or situation. This is not a "one-size-fits-all" world. They are right - and that is the main reason you should read this book. Read this book to expand your knowledge, grow in your career, and learn not only how to code in Rails but how to be a better Java Developer as a result.

Ajax Hacks: Tips & Tools for Creating Responsive Web Sites (Hacks)

Average customer rating:

Not impressed
Wonderful AJAX Companion Book
CLEANING UP WITH AJAX!!
Once you have the basics down...
excellent ajax book

Ajax Hacks: Tips & Tools for Creating Responsive Web Sites (Hacks)
Bruce Perry
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
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ASIN: 0596101694

Book Description

Ajax, the popular term for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is one of the most important combinations of technologies for web developers to know these days. With its rich grouping of technologies, Ajax developers can create interactive web applications with XML-based web services, using JavaScript in the browser to process the web server response.

Taking complete advantage of Ajax, however, requires something more than your typical "how-to" book. What it calls for is Ajax Hacks from O'Reilly. This valuable guide provides direct, hands-on solutions that take the mystery out of Ajax's many capabilities. Each hack represents a clever way to accomplish a specific task, saving you countless hours of searching for the right answer.

A smart collection of 80 insider tips and tricks, Ajax Hacks covers all of the technology's finer points. Want to build next-generation web applications today? This book can show you how. Among the multitude of topics addressed, it shows you techniques for:

Using Ajax with Google Maps and Yahoo Maps
Displaying Weather.com data
Scraping stock quotes
Fetching postal codes
Building web forms with auto-complete functionality

Ajax Hacks also features a number of advanced hacks for accelerated web developers. Discover how to create huge, maintainable bookmarklets, how to use client-side storage for Ajax applications, and how to call a built-in Java object from JavaScript using Ajax. The book even addresses best practices for testing Ajax applications and improving maintenance, performance, and reliability for JavaScript code.

The latest in O"Reilly's celebrated Hacks series, Ajax Hacks smartly complements other O'Reilly titles such as Head Rush Ajax and JavaScript: The Definitive Guide.

Customer Reviews:

Not impressed.......2007-02-15

O'Reilly offers some excellent books. This is not one of them.

Every example I looked at seemed ... not a good example of how to use Javascript. Paging through the book, there are many examples of poor practice in the code. I would be tempted use this book as a source text for bad examples. The ideas might be OK, but the code ... oh please, no.

Wonderful AJAX Companion Book.......2006-10-03

AJAX Hacks by Bruce Perry is a wonderful companion book for any and all AJAX programmers. AJAX has revolutionized the web programming world, enabling developers to write web pages that act more like real applications that we all know and love. AJAX is a simple technology that allows people to do amazing things, and now there is a book that will show you the ins and outs of creating cool code which is fast, efficient, and easy to use!! With over 400 pages and 80 hacks/tips/tricks, this book is perfect for users that are just learning AJAX and quickly want to accomplish a particular goal. Instead of painfully going through a 600 page book, get to the task you want to accomplish quickly with this excellent book!!

Major topics covered:

01. Ajax Basics
02. Web Forms
03. Validation
04. Power Hacks for Web Developers
05. Directing Web Remoting
06. Prototype and Rico Libraries
07. Ajax with Ruby
08. script.aculo.us
09. Options & Efficiencies

Great book, great writing, great deal!!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

CLEANING UP WITH AJAX!!.......2006-09-17

Do you want to add extra interactivity to your web site? If you do, then this book is for you! Author Bruce Perry, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that collects not only dozens of easy-to-grasp, cutting-edge explorations of Ajax technology, such as Google/Yahoo! mapping mash-ups, drag-and-drop bookstores, and single-page web services apps, but a large number of hacks that represent practical advice for Ajax developers.

Perry, begins with a synopsis of the group of well-known technologies that make up Ajax. Then, the author shows how typical it is now to submit form data and to build form widgets such as select lists and checkbox groups using server data fetched in the background with XMLHttpRequest. Next, the author discusses how Ajax applications can cut down on server hits by validating the format of e-mail addresses, credit card numbers, zip codes, and other types of data that users enter into web forms before sending the data. The author then covers a mash-up of Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, and Yahoo! driving directions, as well as a software interaction involving Yahoo! Maps and a location-to-URL service called GeoURL. The author continues by discussing Ajax as it relates to developers who are immersed in both Java and JavaScript. He also discusses how to use Prototype, a cool open source JavaScript library that includes its own Ajax tools. Next, the author shows you how to get up and running with RoR; and then, moves on to several hacks that illustrate RoR's Ajax tools. Then, he covers script.aculo.us, which is another opensource JavaScript library built on Prototype. Finally, the author provides several tips for real-world Ajax developers.

This most excellent book introduces JavaScript newbies and aficionados alike to useful code libraries, including Prototype, Rico, and script.aculo.us. More importantly, web developers can adapt a number of this book's hacks, some of which are distributed as open source libraries, for their own applications.

Once you have the basics down..........2006-07-11

Once you have the basics of Ajax down, you might be looking for some ideas of how to apply it to your own applications. Ajax Hacks by Bruce W. Perry fills that particular niche pretty well.

Contents: Ajax Basics; Web Forms; Validation; Power Hacks for Web Developers; Direct Web Remoting (DWR) for Java Jocks; Hack Ajax with the Prototype and Rico Libraries; Work with Ajax and Ruby on Rails; Savor the script.aculo.us JavaScript Library; Options and Efficiencies; Index

Perry collects 80 "hacks" in this volume, which is focused on different techniques for applying Ajax in various ways. The Basics section contains things that you probably will pick up in most Ajax books and tutorials, such as how to check for errors and how to detect which browser is being used. But the dynamic CSS generation ideas were pretty cool. From then on, you get a variety of hacks and code that show you how to do a number of things, such as populating dropdown lists, building mash-ups, and even how to do a drag-and-drop interface without round-tripping to the server with each action. This is one of those books that you probably won't buy with a particular need in mind, but after reading through the material you'll have some ideas that you want to explore further.

Similar to most Hacks titles, it's also not a book you'd buy to learn Ajax. But given the assumption that you know the basics, this book makes a nice addition to your bookshelf for practicality and application purposes...

excellent ajax book.......2006-06-11

This is an excellent ajax book. Be sure you know javascript, xml, and css before you start reading the book. It's not for the beginner. The examples, especially the idea in the book are so good that you can use them in your real work everyday. It's the 3rd book i went through and I think it deserves the 5 stars.

Average customer rating:

A Breath of Fresh Air
Amazing
Prescription for your SOA woes
Good but pedantic and repetitious
An important guide

RESTful Web Services
Leonard Richardson , and Sam Ruby
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0596529260

Book Description

"Every developer working with the Web needs to read this book." -- David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of the Rails framework

"RESTful Web Services finally provides a practical roadmap for constructing services that embrace the Web, instead of trying to route around it." -- Adam Trachtenberg, PHP author and EBay Web Services Evangelist

You've built web sites that can be used by humans. But can you also build web sites that are usable by machines? That's where the future lies, and that's what RESTful Web Services shows you how to do. The World Wide Web is the most popular distributed application in history, and Web services and mashups have turned it into a powerful distributed computing platform. But today's web service technologies have lost sight of the simplicity that made the Web successful. They don't work like the Web, and they're missing out on its advantages.

This book puts the "Web" back into web services. It shows how you can connect to the programmable web with the technologies you already use every day. The key is REST, the architectural style that drives the Web. This book:

Emphasizes the power of basic Web technologies -- the HTTP application protocol, the URI naming standard, and the XML markup language
Introduces the Resource-Oriented Architecture (ROA), a common-sense set of rules for designing RESTful web services
Shows how a RESTful design is simpler, more versatile, and more scalable than a design based on Remote Procedure Calls (RPC)
Includes real-world examples of RESTful web services, like Amazon's Simple Storage Service and the Atom Publishing Protocol
Discusses web service clients for popular programming languages
Shows how to implement RESTful services in three popular frameworks -- Ruby on Rails, Restlet (for Java), and Django (for Python)
Focuses on practical issues: how to design and implement RESTful web services and clients

This is the first book that applies the REST design philosophy to real web services. It sets down the best practices you need to make your design a success, and the techniques you need to turn your design into working code. You can harness the power of the Web for programmable applications: you just have to work with the Web instead of against it. This book shows you how.

Customer Reviews:

A Breath of Fresh Air.......2007-09-30

For those of us floundering in the complete mess of heavyweight web service standards driven by the large industry vendors, it comes as a surprise that the web already has all the features you need to build enterprise level distributed systems.

This book is well written and will become one of the 'must haves' on any developer's bookshelf.

Amazing.......2007-09-28

A book well written and self-explanatory about how to write wonderful web-services without getting crazy with WSDL :)

Prescription for your SOA woes.......2007-09-01

For those of us who have borne the agony of delivering and maintaining "big" web services, REST architectures as theorized by Roy Fielding came as a whiff of welcome,fresh air. But, like in any fresh pastures, the oxygenating promise of simplicity pulled us in different directions leading to arguments about the degrees of RESTfulness and the fundamental principles of REST. From Amazon to deli.cio.us to flickr, RESTful API's flourish, but when compared, differ. Which raises the question: if there was a 'pure' REST architecture, what would it look like? How would you build it?
This book answers those questions more completely than any other resource out there. It has been one of the most valuable books I have held with me for it has shown me in all its glorious theory, practice and examples, how I may generate complex service-oriented behavior using simple rules. Once immersed, 400 pages will fly by. The rules were always out there, what this book does is simply to explain them to the rest of us, who have not 'got it' yet and how to play by those rules. Read the book. Chew on it. When you understand the vision and the road-map it lays out to achieve the vision, as you begin to see how you may scale those seemingly-unsurmountable web-service hurdles, you will be as glad as I am now, to have invested in this wonderful book.

Good but pedantic and repetitious.......2007-08-30

Ok, the concept behind the book is valid: let's have computers use the web the way it was intended to be used, and if everybody sticks to a small set of reasonable design rules, we'd all be better off. But why does it take 400 pages for the authors to drive that point home (over and over again)? 70% of the content seems "filler" material, which has been put in just to turn this into a book. True, there are code examples that may be helpful to some beginner programmers, but I'm still left feeling that this could have been a well-written, 3-chapter book about 100 pages long.

I'm still glad I read it but found the blabbing rather frustrating. My 2c.

An important guide .......2007-08-07

Collections strong in web services and web development will find Leonard Richardson & Sam Ruby's RESTFUL WEB SERVICES an important guide to connecting web functions with everyday technologies everyone uses. REST is an architectural style that drives the web, and RESTFUL WEB SERVICES introduces ROA and the roles that govern design of RESTFUL web services. Advanced computer libraries catering to programmers need this expose which surveys functions and real-world applications, including common problems and solutions.

Railways of San Francisco (CA) (Images of Rail)

Average customer rating:

Raiways of San Francisco (Images of Rail)

Railways of San Francisco (CA) (Images of Rail)
Paul C. Trimble
Manufacturer: Arcadia Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0738528870

Book Description

It may be hard to believe now, but San Francisco was once dominated by railways. Before private cars crowded this hemmed-in city, rail was the only way to get around the challenging terrain, and the rail industry rose to the task with many innovative systems. Some of these were herculean, with massive bores through rocky hills, or elaborate cable and counterweight systems to handle steep inclines. Others were simpler, horse-drawn affairs that took passengers from the downtown and waterfront areas to outlying districts. The distinct flavor of San Francisco's neighborhoods owes much to the early rails, as these cars enabled residents to form their own enclaves and still interact with the commercial heart of the city.

Customer Reviews:

Raiways of San Francisco (Images of Rail).......2005-08-17

The author is obviously knowledgeable of the subject and has collected an interesting group of relevant illustrations. I hightly reccommed it to anyone interested in the subject.
LeRoy O. King, Jr.

Agile Web Development with Rails: A Pragmatic Guide (Pragmatic Programmers)

Average customer rating:

Clear as water
Agile Web Development
Beyond great: best book, best reference, best index (and funny)
Great new edition of a fine book
Excellent, Thorough and Easy

Agile Web Development with Rails: A Pragmatic Guide (Pragmatic Programmers)
Dave Thomas , David Hansson , Leon Breedt , Mike Clark , Thomas Fuchs , and Andrea Schwarz
Manufacturer: Pragmatic Bookshelf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Accessories:

ASIN: 097669400X

Book Description

Rails is a full-stack, open source web framework that enables you to create full-featured, sophisticated web-based applications, but with a twist... A full Rails application probably has less total code than the XML you'd need to configure the same application in other frameworks. With this book you'll learn how to use ActiveRecord to connect business objects and database tables. No more painful object-relational mapping. Just create your business objects and let Rails do the rest. You'll learn how to use the Action Pack framework to route incoming requests and render pages using easy-to-write templates and components. See how to exploit the Rails service frameworks to send emails, implement web services, and create dynamic, user-centric web-pages using built-in Javascript and Ajax support. There are extensive chapters on testing, deployment, and scaling. You'll see how easy it is to install Rails using your web server of choice (such as Apache or lighttpd) or using its own included web server. You'll be writing applications that work with your favorite database (MySQL, Oracle, Postgres, and more) in no time at all. You'll create a complete online store application in the extended tutorial section, so you'll see how a full Rails application is developed---iteratively and rapidly. Rails strives to honor the Pragmatic Programmer's "DRY Principle" by avoiding the extra work of configuration files and code annotations. You can develop in real-time: make a change, and watch it work immediately. Forget XML. Everything in Rails, from templates to control flow to business logic, is written in Ruby, the language of choice for programmers who like to get the job done well (and leave work on time for a change). Rails is the framework of choice for the new generation of Web 2.0 developers. Agile Web Development with Rails is the book for that generation, written by Dave Thomas (Pragmatic Programmer and author of Programming Ruby) and David Heinemeier Hansson, who created Rails.

Customer Reviews:

Clear as water.......2007-09-27

This book is a really good inversion if you plan to start you "RoR" experience, the way the book is written is very clear and in a good order, so you can understand better what's going on as you go along.

Great book!

Agile Web Development.......2007-09-27

Great book to start off with. Has a good tutorial on building a shopping cart application. Then one can learn from that to develop a application that is unique for their business.

Beyond great: best book, best reference, best index (and funny).......2007-09-19

I am an oldster (you know, 40+) and have learned many a language. Kernigan and Ritchie wrote their "K & R" C-language book in some written language a little higher level than English. After 40 or 50 reads through, I got it. I read C++ books, SmallTalk, Delphi, Visual Basic, and many Java books, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Awk, Emacs, REXX (!!), and just about everything O'Reily has ever published.

Now, I come to Ruby, and Ruby on Rails. Thank goodness for this book. What a relief to read a book that is 1) comprehensive, 2) practical, 3) accurate, 4) funny at times, and 5) above all, has a good index! Perhaps programming languages are (finally) getting easier to write about, but Dave Thomas is an outstanding technical writer: he knows his audience and writes for us. Look, I know a million programming languages, but I am not the kind of person who zips through a book and suddenly gets it. Most books are written by people who are experts in the nuances, but have forgotten the many steps that lead up to those nuances.

AWDWR is better. It starts with a non-trivial and complete tutorial -- the first half of the book is an application that manages to hit most of the critical aspects of actually doing the job. It is a reasonably broad application covering many points of real webapps. (I read through thinking, yeah, we managed to deal with that in our Java webapp in a month, and here it is, built in to Rails, and better ... more than once). Maybe it is Rails, which seems to be a significant step in maturity over current generations (my last was WebWork/Struts 2, which seems to be the best you can do with Java these days, but really only one part of the larger problem).

But I have to give great respect to Dave Thomas and the other great writers who all made this second edition book a great, great book. I could follow along when reading, I actually did the whole tutorial and found myself learning almost all the way through typing the examples in by hand (mostly by learning how to debug my typos and understanding how the language and framework responded). Now that we're writing our real software, we still look back at the tutorial to get a clear view of how all the parts fit together.

The second part of the book is a solid documentation of the components and APIs available. It is not complete, but nor should it be -- if you want the API, link to the Rails site API. It does cover the important points, however, and ties them back to the tutorial where appropriate. Various important aspects are covered in enough detail to get the idea across, but not so much as to be just a lexicon.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. If this is your first programming book, it will be a struggle, but less than most, and if you're a professional software engineer with one or two languages under your belt (and reasonable proficiency at the command line), you will find this a great reference for learning, and for doing.

Great new edition of a fine book.......2007-09-06

If you have the first edition of this book, you REALLY need to get this edition, since some of the recommended ways to do things have changed. Even some of the ways to get the first sample applications up and running have changed a bit. To be sure, the changes are for the better. The first edition of this book helped me to get my first Ruby on Rails app up and running and this one makes it easier.

Excellent, Thorough and Easy.......2007-08-23

This book, for me, was fantastic! Real world examples for the win! I am still not finished with this book, only half-way through it but, I have to say I have never been as excited about a book than I am about this one.

The very beginning chapters get a functional website application up and running called Depot (an on line book store) and they do this in such a way that you don't have to know the Ruby language (no, it's not scaffolding). As long as you can understand how gears work and fit together and that one turns clockwise and another turns counter clockwise, I don't think you'll have a problem.

With that being said, without knowing Ruby, you may be able to get by on making your own application from scratch but, it will be very rough. The purpose of this book is to teach you about Rails, not Ruby.

My recommendation is, read this book first, before a Ruby book. That way, seeing the Ruby code will be much easier to take in after you see how it works in Rails and to syntax used. Do NOT skimp on learning Ruby after you read this book! You will be sorry! There are TONS more to learn just by learning the language itself. There is more than one way to skin a cat and by learning the rest of the language, you will be more empowered to figure out problems on your own.

The only problem I had with this book was that, in the middle of chapter 5, it skipped back to chapter 3 and finished out chapter 5, chapter 6 and half of chapter 7 was missing. This is the printer's fault, not Amazon's or Pragmatic Programmer's fault. If you happen to get a messed up book, don't contact Amazon, it takes forever. Instead, I contacted Pragmatic Programmer via email and let them know of the situation and to my surprise, they sent me a brand new book still in plastic, priority mail which took about 2 days to get to me! I was just expecting maybe the missing chapters in PDF format but, this shows a lot of character on the part of the company (Pragmatic Programmers). My email was responded to in less than 45 seconds after I hit the "send" button. I would like to offer much praise to the company for this!

If you are a PHP developer, there is another framework that has been modeled after Ruby on Rails called CakePHP. It is fairly new and under heavy development but, the basic principals are the same. The only reason I am plugging them here is, without having learned this framework, I don't think I would have thought about looking at Ruby on Rails. For a super quick breakdown of how MVC pattern works. Be aware that Ruby on Rails is much easier. I think this is due to the nature of PHP and not the framework itself. The devs try their hardest to make it easy for you.

I guess I don't have anything else to say about this except, if you do buy this book, you will not be disappointed.

Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class

Average customer rating:

george pullman and his porters
Achievement Lost
Their testimony helped me understand life more.
fascinating historical connections...
A merger of nostalgia and American history

Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class
Larry Tye
Manufacturer: Owl Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Labor & Industrial Relations | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0805078509
Release Date: 2005-05-12

Book Description

hen George Pullman began recruiting Southern blacks as porters in his luxurious new sleeping cars, the former slaves suffering under Jim Crow laws found his offer of a steady job and worldly experience irresistable. They quickly signed up to serve as maid, waiter, concierge, nanny, and occasionally doctor and undertaker to cars full of white passengers, making the Pullman Company the largest employer of African Americans in the country by the 1920s. Drawing on extensive interviews with dozens of porters and their descendants, Larry Tye reconstructs the complicated world of the Pullman porter and the vital cultural, political, and economic roles they played as forerunners of the modern black middle class. Rising from the Rails provides a lively and enlightening look at this important social phenomenon.

Customer Reviews:

george pullman and his porters.......2006-02-10

The pullman porters are gone but their legacy remains. This elegant telling of their story is part of the history of race relations in America. You need to check it out.

Achievement Lost.......2004-11-06

Larry Tye tells the fascinating story of African Americans, emancipated after the Civil War, starting a steady climb to civil rights and the middle class by exploiting job opportunity that ironcially was supposed to exploit them.

A must read for railroad passenger enthusiasts and civil rights advocates unaware of the noble struggles waged peacefully before the violence encouraged by television.

Their testimony helped me understand life more........2004-11-03

Central to this excellent analytical history are the porters themselves. This book is not a biography of A. Philip Randolph or George Pullman. Rather, the vigor of this narrative arises from the men who were sleeping car porters, and most of their testimony comes with their real names and families. The porters worked hard at their extraordinary jobs, and they left a strong legacy in their descendents. I am a railfan, and I learned a lot of detailed history from this book. However, I also received a sense of the accomplishments of these men of the past 140 years. Author Larry Tye, it seems to me, has done an excellent job of transmitting an understanding of the porters' trials, hopes, and victories. I am most grateful to these American workers, and I am most grateful to the author for his clear presentation.

fascinating historical connections..........2004-11-03

...and stories. that's why i recommend this book, altho my interest flagged toward the end. then i heard mr. tye talk at my public library, and the book took on a new perspective. he was so warm toward invited guests and welcoming to others who introduced themselves as pullman porter relatives. it was genuinely thrilling! Plus, an added bonus: pullman sleeping car and dining car scenes from old movies like hitchcock's "north by northwest" and 1949's "all the king's men" now take on extra meaning and importance. thanx, mr. tye.

A merger of nostalgia and American history.......2004-10-07

Larry Tye did an exemplary job of research and interviewing long before he attempted to tell the story of the Pullman porter's place in history, unionization and civil rights. Such detail would be expected of working journalists...unfortunately it is a rarity. Pullman porters were a group of gentlemen one step removed from slavery when Pullman capitalized on their subservient skills...which they performed to perfection. Only those of us in our senior years can remember when porters greeted you and made you comfortable in peacetime and wartime. Larry has superbly described the porter's talents, dreams, successes and failures. Their struggle set an example for and yielded a notable group of future black leaders. That contribution should never be forgotten.

Beginning Rails: From Novice to Professional

Average customer rating:

Best Rails starter book
Good Introduction to Rails
Great for getting started!
Possibly worst tech book ever

Beginning Rails: From Novice to Professional
Jeffrey Allan Hardy , Cloves Carneiro Jr. , and Hampton Catlin
Manufacturer: Apress
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1590596862

Book Description

Beginning Rails is the practical starting point for anyone wanting to learn how to build dynamic web applications using the Rails framework for Ruby. You’ll learn how all of the components of Rails fit together and how you can leverage them to create sophisticated web applications with less code and more joy.

This book is particularly well suited to those with little or no experience with web application development, or who have some experience but are new to Rails. Beginning Rails assumes basic familiarity with web terms and technologies, but doesn't require you to be an expert.

Topics include:

A gentle introduction to the Ruby programming language
Installing Ruby and Rails on a Mac, Linux, or Windows system
The philosophy behind Rails and why it matters
The Model-View-Controller architecture
The basics of relational databases and SQL
Setting up a MySQL database and creating a schema with migrations
Experimenting with your live application in the Rails console
Creating rich relationships between your models
Using controllers and templates properly
Leveraging helpers to keep your templates clean and logic free
Adding Ajax and visual effects to enrich your user interfaces
JavaScript with Prototype and script.aculo.us
How to send and receive mail from your application
Using and creating your own plug-ins
Ensuring your code against Murphy’s Law through writing tests
Using Capistrano to deploy your application

Rather than delving into the arcane details of Rails, the focus is on the aspects of the framework that will become your pick, shovel, and axe. Part history lesson, part introduction to object-oriented programming, and part dissertation on open source software, Beginning Rails doesn’t just explain how to do something in Rails, it explains why.

Every programmer fondly remembers the book that helped them get started. The goal of Beginning Rails is to become that book for you, today.

Customer Reviews:

Best Rails starter book.......2007-09-18

I was never satisfied with "Agile Web Development with Rails", which was the first Rails book and will forever sell a lot of copies because it was written by DHH. However, its not particularly well organized or well written.

The flow of "Beginning Rails" is much better. Every paragraph is more succinct. I consider myself a Rails expert, so much of the content I was already familiar with, but I nonetheless learned a few things (such as how to receive mail in Rails, not just send). Its useful.

I run a Rails development team and will furnish all our new engineers with a copy, unless they are already up to speed on the platform. (In which case something like "Programming Ruby" would be best.)

Good Introduction to Rails.......2007-08-31

I'm a web designer, mostly doing XHTML and CSS. Often I need to work with dynamic applications, so I'm familiar with things like ASP and PHP. I wanted a book to bring me up to speed on Rails since some of the work I've been getting lately has been Rails applications.

This book is good for someone like me who has knowledge of web app design, but an absolute beginner might be stumped by a few bugs. But, if you already have some knowledge in server-side development, this would be a good book to pick up.

Great for getting started!.......2007-08-30

Not being a trained developer I am surely not the only one that got a little intimidated by Agile Web Development with Rails (Pragmatic Programmers)

This is a great book for beginners like me. You'll get a complete introduction to the Rails framework. If you already develop in Rails, look elsewhere but if you have heard the hype and want to see what all the fuss is about, take the plunge, this book will get you up to speed in no time.

Possibly worst tech book ever.......2007-08-29

This may be the worst tech book I have ever purchased. I have bought a number of Apress books over the years and have generally been very happy with them. I learn best when the books build something useful. Beginning Ruby on Rails E-Commerce: From Novice to Professional (Rails) is a much better book if you already have an understanding of RoR. I have read some bad reviews about that book as well, but to this point I have found that it covers the concepts in a real world environment.

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