Build with Ruby on Rails. Get setup and start programming with Ruby, then move onto utilising models, views and controllers, setting layouts, ajax and turbolinks, protective measures, plugins, deployment and production with the Rails framework. You'll go from Ruby on Rails Novice, to Ninja in no time.

Rails: Novice to Ninja

Ruby is an elegant programming language that shot to hipster stardom through Ruby-on-Rails. It’s fun, fast-developing and popular in Silicon Valley.

Ruby

Ruby on Rails is the slick new web development framework for building websites faster, better, and on top of a brilliant language.

Rails

Getting Started

Ruby on Rails

Preface

Since Ruby on Rails was first released, it has become a household name (well, in developers' households, anyway). Hundreds of thousands of developers the world over have adopted—and adored—this framework. I hope that, through the course of this book, you'll come to understand the reasons why. Before we jump into writing any code, let's take a stroll down memory lane and explore a little of the history of Ruby on Rails. 

Introducing Ruby on Rails

To get started with Ruby on Rails, we first must install some development software on our systems. The packages we'll be installing are:

While this chapter makes no attempt to constitute a complete guide to the Ruby language, it will introduce you to some of its basics. We'll power through a crash course in object-oriented programming that covers the more common features of the language, leaving the more obscure aspects of Ruby for a dedicated reference guide. I'll also point out some of the advantages that Ruby has over other languages when it comes to developing applications for the Web.

Introducing Ruby

As we've already covered in Chapter 1 , quite a bit of thought has been put into the codebase that makes up the Rails framework. Over time, many of the internals have been rewritten, items have been added and removed, and conventions have changed. All of this change has improved speed and efficiency, allowing the implementation of additional features, but the original architecture remains largely unchanged. This chapter will shed some light on the inner workings of Rails.

Rails Revealed

In Chapter 4 , we introduced the principles behind the model-view-controller architectural pattern, and saw how each of the components is implemented within the Rails framework. Now we'll put this knowledge to good use as we use Rails' code generation techniques to create these components for our own Readit application.

Models, Views, and Controllers

In the last chapter, we put in place some basic architecture for our application—a model, a view, and a controller—and were able to display a link to a random story in the database. The foundation of our application is sound, but users are unable to really interact with it yet.

Helpers, Forms, and Layouts

The success of a social bookmarking or content-sharing application doesn't rest solely on the submission of users' stories; there must also be a way for site visitors to know the value of each content item.

Ajax and Turbolinks

Over the last few chapters, we've spent a good deal of time implementing new features for our link-sharing application; however, we've yet to put any effort into preventing those features from being misused.

Protective Measures

As we enter the final quarter of this book, we'll implement the last of the features that we listed back in Chapter 1 , in preparation for Readit's much anticipated first release.

Advanced Topics

While this book is unable to cover all of the built-in functionality that ships with Rails—and there's plenty of functionality for you to discover and experiment with once you're beyond the last chapter—the plugins architecture of Rails warrants our attention. 

Rails Plugins

Welcome to a chapter devoted to the very topics nobody likes to talk about: errors, bugs, flaws, and exceptions. These topics, however dismaying, are de rigeur for any comprehensive hands-on technical guide—let's not pretend that development is perennially easy and always results in perfect, error-free code!

Debugging, Testing, and Benchmarking

When Rails applications start to fledge, as their guardian you have to take extra care to make sure they can fly. Admittedly, though, the term “roll” would be more appropriate in the Rails context!

Rails: Novice to Ninja

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Glenn Goodrich

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Rails: Novice to Ninja