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Draft chapters of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial, 3rd Edition

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Re: Draft chapters of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial, 3rd Edition

#31

Post by habosa »

This is not only the best tutorial-style book I have ever read, but probably the best book there is to get into web programming for someone who has never done it. This book totally demystifies the process from start to finish:

* What's a web framework? * Why do I want one? * How do I set up useful version controi? * How do I build an app? * How do I test my app? * How do I deploy my app to the real world?

No other book I have ever seen answers so many questions so eloquently. Thanks mhartl, you are doing something great for new web developers everywhere.

Re: Draft chapters of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial, 3rd Edition

#33

Post by arikrak »

I learned Rails with this tutorial (for Rails 3), which was good, but I thought it covered too much testing which is a bit overwhelming for someone starting off. Its everything-at-once approach also made it harder to reference topics afterwards. The changes in this edition like they'll be pretty helpful. It's also cool that he'll be using a default Cloud9 environment so people don't need to worry about installing anything.

However, I still think there's space for a fully modular approach to learning Rails instead of covering so many topics at once. For example, users could first learn how to use Active Record to interact with data on its own, and only later learn the other steps to building an app. This would also make it easy to look up topics later or just jump into the parts you're interested in. It would also be cool if users were given tasks with pre-written tests (but without solutions) so they would need to figure out the solution on their own and immediately see if they got it right.

(I even thought of creating a small Rails tutorial on http://www.learneroo.com but I can't currently run Rails on it. I guess one could either use an online IDE like Cloud9 or setup a custom Docker environment.)

Re: Draft chapters of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial, 3rd Edition

#34

Post by ambulancechaser »

mhartl wrote: post #23
gyardley wrote: post #22

These sound like really awesome improvements - that installation and configuration cliff and the heavy use of RSpec were the two things that kept me from recommending the 2nd Edition to beginners. If you've got time, it'd be nice to see the installation and configuration chapter make it in as an appendix, since new programmers are going to want to set up their development environment at some point - it's just better…

Thanks for the suggestion and for the kind words. Instructions for setting up a local development environment are already effectively an appendix, because the Ruby on Rails Tutorial just defers to the excellent [InstallRails]( http://installrails.com/ ) service provided by One Month Rails.

Hello. Thank you so much for the book and the pioneering model that you have published it with. All the best on the platform for distribution.

Please don't take the advice to downplay rspec. I think in chapter 8 you update the User model. It was so incredibly nice that, having been a week or so since I was able to work on the project, I was confident that the introduced changes did not break any functionality of the app. It is very easy to not see the benefit of testing when learning, only to curse your luck when you look at code later.

I have recently read a good article using your test suite as an example of how to improve tests. The author criticized the terse nature of your tests, with subject and nested describes. He felt that you write once and read often, so there is great benefit to making the tests verbose. It is, in effect, a contract that any User model must satisfy to be a valid user model. Going DRY and code golf on it only helps to frustrate the person looking to acclimate themselves to a project rather than saving a few minutes during test creation.

Again all the best and thanks for the wonderful tutorial and interesting distribution network.

Re: Draft chapters of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial, 3rd Edition

#35

Post by r-s »

ch4s3 wrote: post #10

I looks great so far, I'm really excited about the extended auth section. Have you ever given any thought to adding a section on working with/building APIs?

I have no affiliation with this, and I am only on the first chapter, but you may find this interesting: http://apionrails.icalialabs.com/book/chapter_one

Re: Draft chapters of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial, 3rd Edition

#36

Post by waffl »

As someone who purchased the previous version, I emailed Michael to ask if upgrade pricing would be available. He responded immediately saying there will indeed be upgrade coupons for existing owners, which is good news. I really learned a lot from this book and am looking forward to the updates!

Re: Draft chapters of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial, 3rd Edition

#37

Post by rev »

mhartl wrote: post #11
rev wrote: post #9

Michael, let me ask two predictable questions. 1. When do you expect to complete the 3rd edition? Seeing as the book is being heavily reworked and knowing your attention to detail, I guess the answer is "when it's ready". 2. Will the Rails version be fixed at 4.1?

I expect the full 3rd edition draft will be released within a couple of weeks. I hope to make a full launch (with screencasts) some time in October or November. I expect to use Rails 4.1 unless 4.2 is out of beta in time to use for the screencasts. I've compartmentalized the version-specific material, though, so I'm cautiously optimistic that I can swap in new Rails versions (even in the screencasts) as they're relea…

Do you intend to make use of new 4.2 goodness or simply make the tutorial 4.2-compatible? Granted, some of the improvements in 4.2 are out of scope for the book (like ActiveJob), some are performance related, but there is also web console. It fits the philosophy of the new edition perfectly and would be a useful addition to the book.

Re: Draft chapters of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial, 3rd Edition

#38

Post by pookieinc »

Similarly to what others have mentioned, I've also found Hartl's Ruby on Rails online edition to be the most comprehensive and impressive tutorial yet. I'd already had a strong foundation on Git, Heroku, TDD-testing, etc. but it was nice to see how they integrated so well with a Rails project and I personally believe they are both beneficial and critical for any web application development.

However, after a cursory glance at the tutorial, I was surprised to see how embedded Cloud9 was in this new version and that seems to be the route Hartl has taken. I'm wondering if anyone has used Cloud9 and what impressions they have?

Great work! Looking forward to taking a deeper look into the tutorial.

Re: Draft chapters of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial, 3rd Edition

#40

Post by rubiquity »

chollida1 wrote: post #2

I have no affiliation with the author, but I'd recommend this book to pretty much anyone trying to learn Rails, I own the second edition. Before this book I'd never done any real web programming. My background is in compilers and trading systems/machine learning( those two are essentially one in the same), all C++ desktop software. The book got me up and running, better than any of the online rails tutorials, and the…

I actually recommend strongly against this book. It teaches things new people to Rails, let alone people new to programming, don't need to be messing with so early on. I'm mainly talking about the use of RSpec and some of the outdated Rails idioms.

For myself and a few people I've mentored, Agile Web Development with Rails[0] has yielded much better results. If they follow that up with Eloquent Ruby[1] they will be golden and well ahead of their peers with similar experience.

This book single-handedly breeds the "I'm a Rails Programmer!" that write terribly awful Ruby code that we all know and hate.

I don't mean to discredit Michael's hard work. Writing and maintaining a book like this is a huge achievement that I'm probably not capable of. I also appreciate that his book is at least bringing people into the Rails ecosystem. I just can't recommend it over others.

0 - https://pragprog.com/book/rails4/agile-web-development-with-...

1 - http://www.amazon.com/Eloquent-Ruby-Addison-Wesley-Professio...

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