books:

	Simply Rails 2 Patrick Lenz SitePoint, 2008 - 450 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The 2nd edition of this practical hands-on guide for first-time Ruby on Rails programmers will walk you through installing the required software on a Windows, Mac or Linux computer. And before you get coding, an entire chapter is devoted to object oriented programming in Ruby, so you'll be completely confident with the Ruby language before you begin working with Rails.

The example application that the book builds - a user-generated news web site - is built upon with each following chapter, and concepts such as sessions, cookies and basic AJAX usage are gradually introduced. Different aspects of Rails, such as user authentication, session cookies, and automated testing are explored with each feature that is added to the application.

The book finishes with chapters on debugging, benchmarking and deployment to a live web server.

By the end of the book, you'll have built a fully-featured Web 2.0 application and deployed it to the Web. And all code is up-to-date for Rails 2.0, so you can begin coding immediately with the latest version of Rails.

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Delivered more than I expected

Simply Rails 2 is a real gem among Rails 2 books at the time I am writing this review. The reason is simple. There are no other introductory books that are up to date with Rails 2.x. At least none that I am aware of.

The author and editors managed to create a unforced yet detailed tutorial that will lead you through all you need to know to start building Rails applications. It will not make you a guru by any means, but no book will do that unless you combine them with numerous blogs and screencasts.

This book delivers more than I expected frankly. Although it is a tutorial, excellent technical editing makes it a light reference full of useful code snippets. Almost all examples are thoroughly examined, line by line. You will find a lot of hints along the way, some more obvious than others.

It provides a introductory coverage of many aspects you will have to deal with when developing Web 2.0 applications (AJAX and REST among others). Ruby is covered just enough to get you started with what a simple Rails application demands from you.

All in all, a great book and it is much much more than just a space filler before AWDWR is updated.
5/5

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Buy this book.

Programming (and logical thinking in general) is definitely not my forte'. I consider myself much more of a designer, but I was still really interested in learning Rails so I could build AND design my own web applications.

I haven't finished the book yet, but after reading the first few chapters I have to say it is an amazing book. This, combined with watching some content from [...] has given me a really good introduction to Rails and I'm confident that I'll have a very decent grasp of it within a matter of months.

This is THE book to get if you want to learn Ruby on Rails.

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Wonderful 2.0 tutorial

This is an excellent way to start learning about rails with 2.0 and above. Unfortunately, many of the older tutorials and books will break with with 2.0 and above, which is a shame because they contain good information. I'd advise anyone who is learning Rails to start with this book. Once you have the basics down, you can switch to more advanced books and articles.

I also give top marks to Patrick Lenz for making testing such a big part of the book. He doesn't just recommend testing, or give it a cursory treatment, he works testing into every chapter. He walks the walk, and it's pretty great.

While I'm giving the book five starts, it actually does lose a quarter star in my book by integrating AJAX into the application before the concepts have been introduced with simpler forms. Don't get me wrong, I really like AJAX, and I think it's presented very clearly so the treatment of AJAX itself gets top marks. But I think that it would be better to introduce one to many and man to many with forms without the distraction of AJAX, and then work in the UI improvements later.

Small complaint for such a good book, though, and not enough to go below 5 starts. If you want to learn Rails 2.0, this is your book.

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Awesome explanation!

I have to concur with the previous reviews on this site. I'd been searching for months for a good Rails 2 book, and, at last, I have found one. It doesn't start with a massive, unwieldly tutorial, one that throws everything at you at once ("look: scaffolding! look: helpers! look: I'm horribly lost! :-) but actually takes the time to coherently explain the underlying structure, and builds on that explanation step-by-step.

The diagrams are great -- if anything, the book could use more, e.g., showing the tie between controller actions and views.

If I were to teach a course in Rails -- and I very well might -- this would be my hands-down choice.

If you need to learn Rails, Simply Rails 2 is simply the best out there.

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Excellent Beginner Book

This book is excellent, if you know nothing of Ruby on Rails, and know very little of other programming languages.

It is a book to introduce you to Rails (and Ruby) without going into too much of the technical aspects.

This will in no way make you proficient at developing Rails applications, however, it introduces you to the fundamentals (especially testing) of rails with which you can go and watch screen screencasts, follow tutorials or read other books on rails with a basic understanding of the process.

I do NOT recommend this book to anyone trying to further along their Rails training (nor is it intended for that).

I DO recommend this for anyone who has picked up a rails book or watched a screencast and blindly started to regurgitate the code that is being taught without understanding what it is supposed to do. This book will explain it.

A (free) tutorial with which I recommend in conjunction with this book is:
[..]
This tutorial goes into gory detail over (nearly) every basic step that you need to know to start your Rails apps.

I have read nearly 10 books , plus countless screencasts and tutorials (mostly outdated due to Rails 2.0) on Rails and Simply Rails 2 is by far the most up-to-date and easy to read for a true beginner.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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