Though there are a deluge of Ruby-related books being published lately, few deal specifically with Ruby on Rails. O'Reilly's Ruby on Rails: Up and Running deals with nothing but Rails, however, and though it requires a significant amount of prerequisite knowledge and is limited to one specific Web platform (Apache/MySQL), it's still an outstanding guide for experienced developers who want to start creating Rails applications immediately.

Writing analysis

This book is designed for professional Web application programmers who are already have a reasonable level of proficiency with Ruby, XHTML, JavaScript, and one or more of the following: PHP, ASP.NET, JSP. You'll also have to be at least somewhat familiar with the model-view-controller (MVC) design strategy. Ruby on Rails: Up and Running is by no means an "introduction" to any particular technology, including Rails; it is not a comprehensive reference or an in-depth step-by-step guide for learning Rails or Ruby from the beginning. The only thing that it does is show enterprise Web developers how to build Web applications with Ruby on Rails. Nothing wrong with that, certainly, but many readers may find this book to be incomplete.

The only real mistakes I found in Ruby on Rails: Up and Running were problems with the placement of code samples. In several places in the book, example code was one paragraph off. There would be an introductory paragraph or sentence to explain what a code block did, but when it showed the code, it had absolutely nothing to do with the text preceding it. If you jump one code sample block ahead, though, it made sense. I would guess that there was a file naming problem someplace in the publication process, and the code sample files were off by one number.

Putting the book to the test

Ruby on Rails: Up and Running wastes no time in getting readers working with Rails. Aside from some basic explanations in the first chapter, the book concentrates primarily on designing a Web-based photo sharing application. You're taken through the entire design process from beginning to end, with a running commentary on how each technology that the authors are using can and should be used. You go from installing Rails on your machine, to starting a project, using scaffolding, then building the application around it. The book finishes with a chapter on testing your Rails applications -- kind of a rare extra feature that many programming books don't have these days.

I was a little disappointed to see that Ruby on Rails: Up and Running only covered the MySQL and PostgreSQL databases, even though the authors say in the beginning that they're developing on a Windows platform. What about MSSQL, Oracle, SQLite, and Firebird?

Summary and conclusions

The people who will find Ruby on Rails: Up and Running most useful are enterprise software developers who find themselves saying, "Uh-oh! The boss wants me to design our next project for Rails and I've never used it before!" It's probably best purchased with something like The Ruby Cookbook if you aren't already coding in Ruby. The odd thing about Ruby on Rails: Up and Running is that if you have all of the prerequisite knowledge necessary to understand what's going on in it, you almost don't need the book itself. If you're already a commercial Web application developer and are familiar with Ruby, you've probably already worked with Rails by now. I think the authors have missed a wider market of Web developers who want to use Ruby on Rails but don't know Ruby. If you know the right combination of books to buy, you'll be okay, but shouldn't this book be a little more comprehensive?

Still, it does what it claims to -- it walks you through building a Web application with Ruby on Rails, and I think that anyone with an interest in this subject will find Ruby on Rails: Up and Running to be at very least a highly educational read. For $20 (or less) it's not a bad bargain.

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Copyright 2006 Jem Matzan.