Fueled by significant benefits and an impressive portfolio of real-world applications already in production, Rails is destined to continue making significant inroads in coming years.Each new Rails application showing up on the web adds yet more to the collective wisdom of the Rails development community. Yesterday's best practices yield to today's latest and greatest techniques, as the state of the art is continually refined in kitchens all across the Internet. Indeed, these are times of great progress.At the same time, it's easy to get left behind in the wake of progress. Advanced Rails Recipes keeps you on the cutting edge of Rails development and, more importantly, continues to turn this fast-paced framework to your advantage.Advanced Rails Recipes is filled with pragmatic recipes you'll use on every Rails project. And by taking the code in these recipes and slipping it into your application you'll not only deliver your application quicker, you'll do so with the confidence that it's done right.The book includes contributions from Aaron Batalion, Adam Keys, Adam Wiggins, Andre Lewis, Andrew Kappen, Benjamin Curtis, Ben Smith, Chris Bernard, Chris Haupt, Chris Wanstrath, Cody Fauser, Dan Benjamin, Dan Manges, Daniel Fischer, David Bock, David Chelimsky, David Heinemeier Hansson, Erik Hatcher, Ezra Zygmuntowicz, Geoffrey Grosenbach, Giles Bowkett, Greg Hansen, Gregg Pollack, Hemant Kumar, Hugh Bien, Jamie Orchard-Hays, Jamis Buck, Jared Haworth, Jarkko Laine, Jason LaPier, Jay Fields, John Dewey, Jonathan Dahl, Josep Blanquer, Josh Stephenson, Josh Susser, Kevin Clark, Luke Francl, Mark Bates, Marty Haught, Matthew Bass, Michael Slater, Mike Clark, Mike Hagedorn, Mike Mangino, Mike Naberezny, Mike Subelsky, Nathaniel Talbott, PJ Hyett, Patrick Reagan, Peter Marklund, Pierre-Alexandre Meyer, Rick Olson, Ryan Bates, Scott Barron, Tony Primerano, Val Aleksenko, and Warren Konkel.

    A full Rails application probably has less total code than the XML you'd need to configure the same application in other frameworks. With this book you'll learn how to use "ActiveRecord" to connect business objects and database tables. No more painful object-relational mapping. Just create your business objects and let Rails do the rest. You'll learn how to use the "Action Pack" framework to route incoming requests and render pages using easy-to-write templates and components. See how to exploit the Rails service frameworks to send emails, implement web services, and create dynamic, user-centric web-pages using built-in Javascript and Ajax support. There are extensive chapters on testing, deployment, and scaling. You'll see how easy it is to install Rails using your web server of choice (such as Apache or lighttpd) or using its own included web server. You'll be writing applications that work with your favorite database (MySQL, Oracle, Postgres, and more) in no time at all. You'll create a complete online store application in the extended tutorial section, so you'll see how a full Rails application is developed---iteratively and rapidly. Rails strives to honor the Pragmatic Programmer's "DRY Principle" by avoiding the extra work of configuration files and code annotations. You can develop in real-time: make a change, and watch it work immediately. Forget XML. Everything in Rails, from templates to control flow to business logic, is written in Ruby, the language of choice for programmers who like to get the job done well (and leave work ontime for a change). Rails is the framework of choice for the new generation of Web 2.0 developers. Agile Web Development with Rails is the book for that generation, written by Dave Thomas (Pragmatic Programmer and author of Programming Ruby) and David Heinemeier Hansson, who created Rails.

    You can now easily extend the framework, change its behavior, and replace whole components to bend it to your will, all without messy hacks. This pioneering book is the first resource that deep dives into the new Rails 3 APIs and shows you how use them to write better web applications and make your day-to-day work with Rails more productive. Rails Core developer Jose Valim guides you through seven different tutorials, each of them using test-driven development to build a new Rails extension or application that solves common problems with these new APIs. You will understand how the Rails rendering stack works and customize it to read templates from the database while you learn how to mimic Active Record behavior, like validations, in any other object. You will find out how to write faster, leaner controllers, and you'll learn how to mix Sinatra applications into your Rails apps, so you can choose the most appropriate tool for the job. In addition, you will improve your productivity by customizing generators and responders. This book will help you understand Rails 3's inner workings, including generators, template handlers, internationalization, routing, and responders. With the knowledge you'll gain, you'll be ready to tackle complicated projects more easily than ever before, creating solutions that are well-tested, modular, and easy to maintain.

    "The Rails(TM) 3 Way"is the only comprehensive, authoritative guide to delivering production-quality code with Rails 3. Pioneering Rails expert Obie Fernandez and a team of leading experts illuminate the entire Rails 3 API, along with the idioms, design approaches, and libraries that make developing applications with Rails so powerful. Drawing on their unsurpassed experience and track record, they address the real challenges development teams face, showing how to use Rails 3 to maximize your productivity. Using numerous detailed code examples, the author systematically covers Rails 3 key capabilities and subsystems, making this book a reference that you will turn to again and again. He presents advanced Rails programming techniques that have been proven effective in day-to-day usage on dozens of production Rails systems and offers important insights into behavior-driven development and production considerations such as scalability. Dive deep into the Rails 3 codebase and discover why Rails is designed the way it is--and how to make it do what you want it to do.This book will help youLearn what's new in Rails 3 Increase your productivity as a web application developer Realize the overall joy in programming with Rails Leverage Rails' powerful capabilities for building REST-compliant APIs Drive implementation and protect long-term maintainability using RSpec Design and manipulate your domain layer using Active Record Understand and program complex program flows using Action Controller Master sophisticated URL routing concepts Use Ajax techniques via Rails 3 support for unobtrusive JavaScript Learn to extend Rails with popular gems and plugins, and how to write your own Extend Rails with the best third-party plug-ins and write your own Integrate email services into your applications with Action Mailer Improve application responsiveness with background processing Create your own non-Active Record domain classes using Active Model Master Rails' utility classes and extensions in Active Support

    That means you can't tap into the full power of Rails unless you master the Ruby language. ""Ruby for Rails,"" written by Ruby expert David Black (with a forward by David Heinemeier Hansson), helps Rails developers achieve Ruby mastery. Each chapter deepens your Ruby knowledge and shows you how it connects to Rails. You'll gain confidence working with objects and classes and learn how to leverage Ruby's elegant, expressive syntax for Rails application power. And you'll become a better Rails developer through a deep understanding of the design of Rails itself and how to take advantage of it.Newcomers to Ruby will find a Rails-oriented Ruby introduction that's easy to read and that includes dynamic programming techniques, an exploration of Ruby objects, classes, and data structures, and many neat examples of Ruby and Rails code in action. ""Ruby for Rails"": the Ruby guide for Rails developers!What's Inside Classes, modules, and objects Collection handling and filtering String and regular expression manipulation Exploration of the Rails source code Ruby dynamics Many more programming concepts and techniques!

    The Web is awash in Ruby code that is now virtually impossible to change or extend. This text helps you solve that problem by using powerful real-world object-oriented design techniques, which it thoroughly explains using simple and practical Ruby examples. Sandi Metz has distilled a lifetime of conversations and presentations about object-oriented design into a set of Ruby-focused practices for crafting manageable, extensible, and pleasing code. She shows you how to build new applications that can survive success and repair existing applications that have become impossible to change. Each technique is illustrated with extended examples, all downloadable from the companion Web site, poodr.info. The first title to focus squarely on object-oriented Ruby application design, Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby will guide you to superior outcomes, whatever your previous Ruby experience. Novice Ruby programmers will find specific rules to live by; intermediate Ruby programmers will find valuable principles they can flexibly interpret and apply; and advanced Ruby programmers will find a common language they can use to lead development and guide their colleagues. This guide will help you Understand how object-oriented programming can help you craft Ruby code that is easier to maintain and upgrade Decide what belongs in a single Ruby class Avoid entangling objects that should be kept separate Define flexible interfaces among objects Reduce programming overhead costs with duck typing Successfully apply inheritance Build objects via composition Design cost-effective tests Solve common problems associated with poorly designed Ruby code

    It gives you hundreds of solutions to real-world problems, with clear explanations and thousands of lines of code you can use in your own projects.From data structures and algorithms, to integration with cutting-edge technologies, the Ruby Cookbook has something for every programmer. Beginners and advanced Rubyists alike will learn how to program with:Strings and numbersArrays and hashesClasses, modules, and namespacesReflection and metaprogrammingXML and HTML processingRuby on Rails (including Ajax integration)DatabasesGraphicsInternet services like email, SSH, and BitTorrentWeb servicesMultitaskingGraphical and terminal interfacesIf you need to write a web application, this book shows you how to get started with Rails. If you're a system administrator who needs to rename thousands of files, you'll see how to use Ruby for this and other everyday tasks. You'll learn how to read and write Excel spreadsheets, classify text with Bayesian filters, and create PDF files. We've even included a few silly tricks that were too cool to leave out, like how to blink the lights on your keyboard.The Ruby Cookbook is the most useful book yet written about Ruby. When you need to solve a problem, don't reinvent the wheel: look it up in the Cookbook.

    With its simple commands, flags, and parameters, a well-formed command-line application is the quickest way to automate a backup, a build, or a deployment and simplify your life. As Ruby pro David Copeland explains, writing a command-line application that is self-documenting, robust, adaptable and forever useful is easier than you might think. Ruby is particularly suited to this task, since it combines high-level abstractions with "close to the metal" system interaction wrapped up in a concise, readable syntax. Moreover, Ruby has the support of a rich ecosystem of open-source tools and libraries. Ten insightful chapters each explain and demonstrate a command-line best practice. You'll see how to use these tools to elevate the lowliest automation script to a maintainable, polished application. You'll learn how to use free, open source parsers to create user-friendly command-line interfaces as well as command suites. You'll see how to use defaults to keep options simple for everyday users, while giving advanced users options for more complex tasks. There's no reason a command-line application should lack documentation, whether it's part of a help command or a man page; you'll find out when and how to use both. Your journey from command-line novice to pro ends with a look at valuable approaches to testing your apps, and includes some fun techniques for outside-the-box, colorful interfaces that will delight your users. With Ruby, the command line is not dead. Long live the command line.What You Need: All you'll need is Ruby, and the ability to install a few gems along the way. Examples written for Ruby 1.9.2, but 1.8.7 should work just as well.

    This authoritative book scrapes away these bad features to reveal a subset of JavaScript that's more reliable, readable, and maintainable than the language as a whole--a subset you can use to create truly extensible and efficient code.Considered the JavaScript expert by many people in the development community, author Douglas Crockford identifies the abundance of good ideas that make JavaScript an outstanding object-oriented programming language-ideas such as functions, loose typing, dynamic objects, and an expressive object literal notation. Unfortunately, these good ideas are mixed in with bad and downright awful ideas, like a programming model based on global variables.When Java applets failed, JavaScript became the language of the Web by default, making its popularity almost completely independent of its qualities as a programming language. In JavaScript: The Good Parts, Crockford finally digs through the steaming pile of good intentions and blunders to give you a detailed look at all the genuinely elegant parts of JavaScript, including:SyntaxObjectsFunctionsInheritanceArraysRegular expressionsMethodsStyleBeautiful featuresThe real beauty? As you move ahead with the subset of JavaScript that this book presents, you'll also sidestep the need to unlearn all the bad parts. Of course, if you want to find out more about the bad parts and how to use them badly, simply consult any other JavaScript book.With JavaScript: The Good Parts, you'll discover a beautiful, elegant, lightweight and highly expressive language that lets you create effective code, whether you're managing object libraries or just trying to get Ajax to run fast. If you develop sites or applications for the Web, this book is an absolute must.

    In Eloquent Ruby, Russ Olsen helps you write Ruby like true Rubyists do-so you can leverage its immense, surprising power. Olsen draws on years of experience internalizing the Ruby culture and teaching Ruby to other programmers. He guides you to the "Ah Ha!" moments when it suddenly becomes clear why Ruby works the way it does, and how you can take advantage of this language's elegance and expressiveness. Eloquent Ruby starts small, answering tactical questions focused on a single statement, method, test, or bug. You'll learn how to write code that actually looks like Ruby (not Java or C#); why Ruby has so many control structures; how to use strings, expressions, and symbols; and what dynamic typing is really good for. Next, the book addresses bigger questions related to building methods and classes. You'll discover why Ruby classes contain so many tiny methods, when to use operator overloading, and when to avoid it. Olsen explains how to write Ruby code that writes its own code-and why you'll want to. He concludes with powerful project-level features and techniques ranging from gems to Domain Specific Languages. A part of the renowned Addison-Wesley Professional Ruby Series, Eloquent Ruby will help you "put on your Ruby-colored glasses" and get results that make you a true believer.

    I loved the tutorial-style game-like program development. This book rekindled my earliest joys of programming. Plus, JavaScript!" —Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScriptJavaScript is the language of the Web, and it's at the heart of every modern website from the lowliest personal blog to the mighty Google Apps. Though it's simple for beginners to pick up and play with, JavaScript is not a toy—it's a flexible and complex language, capable of much more than the showy tricks most programmers use it for.Eloquent JavaScript goes beyond the cut-and-paste scripts of the recipe books and teaches you to write code that's elegant and effective. You'll start with the basics of programming, and learn to use variables, control structures, functions, and data structures. Then you'll dive into the real JavaScript artistry: higher-order functions, closures, and object-oriented programming.Along the way you'll learn to:Master basic programming techniques and best practices Harness the power of functional and object-oriented programming Use regular expressions to quickly parse and manipulate strings Gracefully deal with errors and browser incompatibilities Handle browser events and alter the DOM structure Most importantly, Eloquent JavaScript will teach you to express yourself in code with precision and beauty. After all, great programming is an art, not a science—so why settle for a killer app when you can create a masterpiece?

    Although its remarkable capabilities have made Ruby on Rails one of the world’s most popular web development frameworks, it can be challenging to learn and use. Ruby on Rails™ 3 Tutorial is the solution. Leading Rails developer Michael Hartl teaches Rails 3 by guiding you through the development of your own complete sample application using the latest techniques in Rails web development.Drawing on his experience building RailsSpace, Insoshi, and other sophisticated Rails applications, Hartl illuminates all facets of design and implementation—including powerful new techniques that simplify and accelerate development.You’ll find integrated tutorials not only for Rails, but also for the essential Ruby, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and SQL skills you’ll need when developing web applications. Hartl explains how each new technique solves a real-world problem, and he demonstrates this with bite-sized code that’s simple enough to understand, yet novel enough to be useful. Whatever your previous web development experience, this book will guide you to true Rails mastery.This book will help you Install and set up your Rails development environment Go beyond generated code to truly understand how to build Rails applications from scratch Learn Test Driven Development (TDD) with RSpec Effectively use the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern Structure applications using the REST architecture Build static pages and transform them into dynamic ones Master the Ruby programming skills all Rails developers need Define high-quality site layouts and data models Implement registration and authentication systems, including validation and secure passwords Update, display, and delete users Add social features and microblogging, including an introduction to Ajax Record version changes with Git and share code at GitHub Simplify application deployment with Heroku

     Rails(TM) AntiPatterns identifies these widespread Rails code and design problems, explains why they're bad and why they happen--and shows exactly what to do instead.The book is organized into concise, modular chapters--each outlines a single common AntiPattern and offers detailed, cookbook-style code solutions that were previously difficult or impossible to find. Leading Rails developers Chad Pytel and Tammer Saleh also offer specific guidance for refactoring existing bad code or design to reflect sound object-oriented principles and established Rails best practices. With their help, developers, architects, and testers can dramatically improve new and existing applications, avoid future problems, and establish superior Rails coding standards throughout their organizations.This book will help you understand, avoid, and solve problems withModel layer code, from general object-oriented programming violations to complex SQL and excessive redundancy Domain modeling, including schema and database issues such as normalization and serialization View layer tools and conventions Controller-layer code, including RESTful code Service-related APIs, including timeouts, exceptions, backgrounding, and response codes Third-party code, including plug-ins and gems Testing, from test suites to test-driven development processes Scaling and deployment Database issues, including migrations and validations System design for "graceful degradation" in the real world

    This practical "how-to" handbook, written by experienced programmer Hal Fulton, has been updated to not only explain the newest features of Ruby, but also to show how people use Ruby today, including coverage of Ruby on Rails.

    Today, Rails developers and architects need better ways to interface with legacy systems, move into the cloud, and scale to handle higher volumes and greater complexity. In Service-Oriented Design with Ruby and Rails Paul Dix introduces a powerful, services-based design approach geared toward overcoming all these challenges. Using Dix's techniques, readers can leverage the full benefits of both Ruby and Rails, while overcoming the difficulties of working with larger codebases and teams. Dix demonstrates how to integrate multiple components within an enterprise application stack; create services that can easily grow and connect; and design systems that are easier to maintain and upgrade. Key concepts are explained with detailed Ruby code built using open source libraries such as ActiveRecord, Sinatra, Nokogiri, and Typhoeus. The book concludes with coverage of security, scaling, messaging, and interfacing with third-party services. Service-Oriented Design with Ruby and Rails will help you Build highly scalable, Ruby-based service architectures that operate smoothly in the cloud or with legacy systems Scale Rails systems to handle more requests, larger development teams, and more complex code bases Master new best practices for designing and creating services in Ruby Use Ruby to glue together services written in any language Use Ruby libraries to build and consume RESTful Web services Use Ruby JSON parsers to quickly represent resources from HTTP services Write lightweight, well-designed API wrappers around internal or external services Discover powerful non-Rails frameworks that simplify Ruby service implementation Implement standards-based enterprise messaging with Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) Optimize performance with load balancing and caching Provide for security and authentication