Learning Rails

Ready to learn Rails? Get up to speed using the framework's latest release. In this Live Edition, Learning Rails has been updated to cover Rails 2.3.5, making it an ideal guide for Rails beginners.

Unlike most Rails books, Learning Rails is for web developers, and not for programmers. Rather than begin with the inner layers of a Rails web application -- the models and controllers -- this book approaches Rails development from the outer layer: the view side of an application. You'll start from the foundations of the Web you already know, and learn how to create something visible with Rails before reaching the more difficult database models and controller code. Each chapter includes exercises and review questions so you can test your understanding as you go.

• Present content by building an application with a basic view and a simple controller, while learning Ruby along the way
• Build forms and process their results, progressing from simple to more complex
• Connect forms to models by setting up a database, and use Rails' Active Record to create code that maps to database structures
• Use Rails scaffolding to build applications from a view-centric perspective
• Add common web application elements such as sessions, cookies, and authentication
• Build applications that combine data from multiple tables
• Create simple but dynamic interfaces with Rails and Ajax