[Rails] [ANN] "Ruby for Rails" now available in PDF!

SB
Mon, 17 Apr 2006 05:00:22 -0000

Just got this book and all I can say is "I wish I had this a looooong time
ago!"

I have both PragProg books on Ruby & Rails so I am talking in
retrospect and with the background given by these two books.

Basically, to me "Ruby for Rails" is much more logically organized and
thorough in the sense that it pretty much covers all the aspects a
newbie would wrap their heads around or not know where to ask.  It
delves into enough of the innards of the language (ruby) and framework
(rails) that you could feel comfortable that you have enough
background knowledge not to get lost in meaninglessly fighting the
language or just look at rails as "voodoo".

The coverage of ruby is really good with explanations of aspects that
aren''t even mentioned in "Programming Ruby" and this is
really good
for people like me that come with absolutely no background in
programming.  Also, the conceptual frameworks of MVC and
object-oriented programming are covered nicely as well.

I don''t mean to knock the PragProg books but by the time I got to
Chapter 3, I felt like I was fast forwarded into concepts that were
still beyond me.  Of course, this is mainly due to my ignorance.

This book makes Rails seem less "voodoo".
http://www.manning.com/black/excerpt_contents.html

It will be a nice complement to the existing library as well since it
is based on Rails 1.0.  If you combine this with "Rails Recipes" you
can be up to speed with the cutting edge of stable releases.  Of
course, Rails is still a moving target with its rapid pace of
development.

However, since it is a book about Ruby FOR Rails, you will  not find
as much information on modelling data objects and various scenarios
such as single-table inheritance etc. that you find in the Pick Axe
book.  Also as you can see from the table of contents above, the
section dedicated exclusively to rails is a way smaller proportion of
volume dedicated to ruby.

Still, since the print version is coming out in May and the full price
of the ebook is deducted from your print purchase, I say it is an
extremely good deal and nice addition to the family of books out
there.

Congratulations on writing this fine piece of work and thank you.