Maneki Neko said
This book is horribly outdated, and trying to learn Ruby on Rails with it is an exercise in frustration. As much time is spent battling things that have become outdated as spent learning Ruby on Rails. I would strongly recommend anyone considering this book to look elsewhere.
Michael N. Burch said
I must agree with other reviewers that this book is out-of-date. The author makes common use of things that are now deprecated in the newer versions of the software.
I have had the same problems as others with getting the project to work with MySQL. It was a real nightmare, requiring many hours on Google and having to edit the registry (yuck!) due to numerous installs/uninstalls of MySQL before I finally got things working. I am getting ready to start Chapter 4 - Registering Users. I am seriously hoping that I've gotten past all the hurdles and can start making better progress. I also agree with the reviewer who stated that he realized he'd gotten into a monkey typing mode - typing in a lot of stuff without understanding why. I think the author could have made a bit more effort to explain things in more detail, like what the bazillion files are (and what they do) that get automatically created when you first create the project.
What I do like about this book is that you learn incrementally by building a real-world application from the ground up. I don't understand why more computer programming books don't do that. I hate programming books that have a chapter on handling strings, a chapter on arrays, etc., with a few code snippets and no explanation of how it all fits together.
BTW, I am an experienced programmer (20+ years), but this is my first venture into Ruby. This the only Ruby on Rails book I've worked with, so I can't compare this book with other similar books currently on the market.
space kaiser said
I'm not an experienced coder by any means but I do have some very basic fundamental understanding of both Web programming (HTML, PHP, PERL, CSS) and working within Terminal (on my MacOSX). I am on page 45 of this book and I have needed to reference more websites and other documentation to get through the examples then is reasonably acceptable. The book is definitely out of date compared to the current Rails edition and you can read this fact as even written by the author on this very Amazon page. What he doesn't tell you or rather leads you to believe is that you will be able to get past the subtle or relatively easy conflicts of what the book says and of what you actually need to program the RailsSpace application simply. This is just not true. The user group website is very difficult to navigate through and similarly confusing. It is mostly written by users of questionable credentials. Just a few examples of fundamental problems I am having: 1) Installing Ruby and Rails is not really explained. The author breezes through where to download the files and the few command prompts that are needed to make it work but fails to adequately cover where these installations are in your directory and how to change those paths. 2) Just going with what ever is defaulted will mess you up when you have to install MySQL. I can't get my RailsSpace application to talk to MySQL at this point. 3) I have then found out that Rails 2 doesn't use MySQL for default but SQLite so on a totally different site I found that I had to make the railsspace application differently, negating the work that was done already. 4) I then had to install MySQL manually and have no help for the errors I get when trying to run the application. I have wasted so much time and attempted so many things trying to get the components to work together that I am certain I have screwed up my system by trying every suggestion I see on the internet. I don't know how to just scrap it all and start from scratch now knowing what irrelevant information is in the book now and substitute it with the right stuff. On the authors blog site he tells you that they have both abandoned working on the RailsSpace application to pursue other things and leave you in the hands of a Google user group. This is unprofessional and the publisher of the book should pull this dated, now complicated and obviously unsupported version of the book. They should rewrite it according to the current Ruby and Rails version if they want to continue selling it. I am so upset that I have invested the time I did into this book and that I spent the money on it too. I really liked the idea but all that you will do if you buy this book is make more work for yourself. The changes to the Rails program and syntax is not the authors fault but why are they too good to write an update and release it so that it is compatible? Look at all the 4-5 star reviews and note the dates they were written- as I said I'm sure when the book was current it was great but now it is no longer a "step-by-step guide" but a rough outline.
A. Kast said
I love this book because it is highly readable and full of little asides explaining why things work the way they do. Rails has many features, and ruby the language has many more, so I love the way this book explains both at the same time, yet without being "too simple". The book assumes that you are intelligent but simply ignorant of rails and the nuances of ruby, so it feels like a good colleague explaining the finer quirks of a system.
The only minus is that it's mostly written for an older version of rails, so some of the setup and config information is a bit dated. Definitely use the web as your companion while reading. But I still learned a great deal from this book because unlike other rails books, it took the time to explain the significance of the colons and other strange looking syntax in a statement like
link_to 'Login Here', :action=> 'login'
And to boot it is written in a fun, playful style while at the same time still being more informative than other books I read.
Other books devote more coverage to various 3rd libraries; this book is more about how to build from scratch, so this is a great foundation for getting started with Rails, while other books might be more helpful once you're further along and want more advanced functionality.
Patrick Tulskie said
If you're thinking about getting this then stop now and just do it. It's a great introduction to RoR that is fun and practical.
Simply put, you construct a really simple social network with the book. I'm only half finished with it, but the stuff I've learned will be invaluable on other projects. The author sprinkles in some humor the whole way along.
One of the really great things is the testing and refactoring of code. They show you how to do something quickly and then they also take the time to go back and clean up code and do things more efficiently, while maintaining integrity through RoR's testing.
It's awesome, and I've already purchased another copy to give away as a gift.
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