Charles B. Forcey said
I own most of the Ruby and RR books and was nervous to buy another. I am pleased I did after reading this book cover to cover in the Kindle edition. Since Rails and Ruby are so flexible, intermediate programmers like myself spent a lot of time researching and wondering what methods are the most appropriate for inserting javascript, testing complex stories, or implementing RESTful architectures. The author picks up each of these questions in detail, mixing well written surveys of relevant approaches with well reasoned arguments for why rails and the community are moving in one direction and not another. Bravo! I am a much better Rails developer as a result of this book. The Kindle edition has some minor formatting glitches (they need to get their fixed font code formatting settled down especially) but was eminently readable.
Arsalan Tavakoli said
The Art of Rails is a phenomenal follow-on book for anyone who has completed a beginner Ruby on Rails book and is looking for moving on to the next step. Beginner RoR books (such as Agile Web Development with Rails and online tutorials, such as Rolling with Rails) focus on the mechanisms, getting the basic feel for the capabilities of RoR to quickly build web applications.
The Art of Rails is the next step, focusing on the policy and the how. Once the basic mechanisms are taught, the natural next step is the how -- how these mechanisms can be used to best achieve the initial goals laid out by each developer. This book dives into design paradigms such as M-V-C and REST in a thorough, yet pleasantly intuitive manner that guides the developer in methods of using good design and programming principles to build more flexible and efficient web applications.
For any developer that has learned the basics of Ruby on Rails and is looking for the next step, looking to really leverage the power of Rails to build web applications, this is certainly the book that helped me complete that progression.
Justin Meyer said
The Art of Rails not only a great Rails book, but it is a great web development book. It's first chapter should be read by every web developer. It clearly explains how the web started, the choices that were made, and where it is today.
These types of broad insights are what you'd expect from a top CS curriculum. The kind of insights that explain why you are doing what you doing, instead of just how.
I just wish I read this book when I first started programming for the web.
Larry said
I really enjoyed this book. (Of course, I enjoy most tech books because you can always pick up new information or a different/better slant on something you thought you already knew.)
It is obvious Edward knows his stuff, and he has a knack for describing and explaining difficult concepts.
I especially liked his coverage of AJAX, Methods and Messages, Procs and Blocks, and Mixins.
Good book, Edward. Thanks for writing it!
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