Beginning Ruby on Rails

Fast shipping. In great shape. This has nothing to do with the seller or the transaction, but wow - could they have a worse cover on this book? I would never buy this book due to the cover, so it's good I just ordered it online. I just covered the cover! Sorry if this is rude, but really!!! Even just a plain cover would be nice! Again - the sale went perfect. Thanks!

I am tired of books that present a giant, extended tutorial, revealing bits and pieces while continually dragging you deeper into a dense forest of detail, leaving you, machete in hand, to try and find your way to enlightenment. Unlike those, this book actually teaches -- it provides small examples that clearly illustrate isolated concepts, and builds from there. I gather that Dr. Holzner has written > 100 programming books, and this work clearly shows why he is in such demand.

'Beginning Ruby on Rails' by extreme (lots of publications) author Steven Holzner is an absolute must-buy for anyone looking to start learning Ruby on Rails!! With over 350+ pages of content spread over 11 chapters, subject matter is broken up logically: 01. Ruby Overview 02. Conditionals, Loops, Methods, Blocks 03. Classes and Objects 04. Rails Overview 05. Building Simple Rails Applications 06. Connecting to Databases 07. Working with Databases 08. Validating and Testing 09. Action Controller 10. Views 11. Ajax and Rails This books is well written, sticks to the basics of teaching you how to become juuust a tad dangerous with Rails and and not going much further. Some reviewers have noted that this book is light but I 100% disagree. For the subject matter of learning this technology and getting up to speed this does exactly what is advertised. Wrox puts out lots of good books and this one easily gets my stamp of approval! ***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

It is written in a very clear way and makes it easy to understand for the beginner. Beginners must read this book to prepare themselves to move on to heavier books like Ruby for Rails and Agile Web Development with Rails. I was able to finish it in one reading during my visit to the local bookstore. It gives a solid basics in Ruby, just enough for a beginner to understand Ruby code for Rails development. I really liked the explanation for Symbols and Blocks. Good job Dr. Holzner!

I have been looking at various books on RoR. Most of them seem to be targeted towards people with some prior knowledge of RoR. This is the first that has been very simple, very clear and that takes you through each step assuming only a VERY BASIC knowledge of HTML and nothing else. If you are new to RoR THIS is the book for you!! It clearly goes through EACH step explaining why & highlighting pieces of code. For example, it does not, like almost all the books that I have read, assume that you already know what MVC means & WHY it is a concept that makes sense to use. the author goes through the process of explaining the concept of Model-View-Controller, while at the same time taking your through SIMPLE easy to understand examples which illustrate the concepts claerly and give you that `light bulb' moment. The book builds in this way, with examples which keep adding one new simple layer at a time (not several so that you are lost) but eventually leading you into the guts of RoR. Suddenly, without realizing it, you find yourself in the midst of having set up an application without realizing it & this itself makes you understand WHY Ruby for Rails is becoming very popular. If you want to know what RoR is about and are starting out in this discovery, THIS is the book for you. By the end of the book you will realize that you are ready to start developing your own applications. I am one of those people that need to know why I am doing something - lots of books have simply shown HOW to do things. This book does both & its the book I have been looking for. The type of book I wanted - the one ``epiphany book''. I suggest that any newbie start with this & then after you read this ( & it is an easy read), you can then go to the other books which I think are good after you realize how all this makes sense. I should emphasize that this book as well later deals with most of the more "advanced" topics found in some of the others - but it leads into them gradually in a logical way that helps you understand why & how those tools fall into place with RoR. To further illustrate my previous frustration, I had previously seen several mind-blowing online screencasts on "unit tests", but it was not clear to me exactly what a "unit test" was, and why they were done & how the way RoR dealt with them made web application more efficient. After reading this book I seem to know WHY & HOW ALL these things come together to make RoR the talk of web development. The book only requires that you know some LITTLE html, & the author obviously introduces Ruby to start - in the same easy style (even including "try it outs" together). Again, the author SHOWS how and why the 2 work together. All those little things that no one bothered to tell you about will be revealed by reading this book...