Rails 1.0 - Agile book still good?

Rails
1

I’m new to Ruby and RoR but excited to learn what I can do with RoR; I
have Pickaxe second edition and want to get “Agile Web D. with
Rails” but I’m aware that the book was published some while before RoR
version 1.0 was released. Has a lot changed since then, and would I
therefore be advised to wait for a second edition of AWDwR?

Many thanks in advance for your thoughts on this matter,

Michael

2

Don’t wait- get it, you’ll probably need it. And it’s 99.9% accurate.

3

The agile book is still definatelly valid for rails 1.0. It doesn’t
include some of the snazzy things that didn’t quite make it into 1.0,
like rjs templates, but if you work through the examples in the book
with rails 1.0 it should work fine, and will give a good understanding
of many thinks that you can do with rails (but certainly not all, new
things are popping up all the time). So yep, I’d go buy it.

Craig

4

Definitely get it, but then spend some time getting up to speed on
migrations and some of the new ajax stuff. From what I understand they
are
contemplating releasing the upgraded information for free. I’m actually
pushing for a V2 book at full cost, but that’s because I think Dave
deserves
insane profit. :slight_smile:

Michael

5

As everyone else has said, it covers 99% of what is out there, but the
book even acknowledges where parts have been updated since the
original writing. They demonstrate helpers by showing you how to
format numbers into currency (already done in new version),
and then point out that it is a good exercise for learning helpers.

It is a good tutorial/reference book, and also has some basic Ruby
stuff in the back as a refresher.

On 12/28/05, Michael T. [email protected] wrote:

[email protected]
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

–

  • Nic
6

Thanks everyone, you’ve reassured me. I’ll order it right now. :slight_smile:

7

It’s a damn good book, I just bought it last week and have been
reading through it. It’s clearly the best $35 dollars I’ve spent in a
long time. And of course I couldn’t stop there, I just had to get the
Pick axe 2nd edition as well…

8

On Thursday 29 December 2005 06:53 am, Michael Bannister wrote:

Thanks everyone, you’ve reassured me. I’ll order it right now. :slight_smile:

Please let us all know what you think of the book. I ordered it 2 days
ago,
and I absolutely love it. It cleanly walks one through rails from theory
to
hello world to a complete shopping cart.

SteveT

Steve L.
Author:

9

Just to repeat everyone else’s praises, BUY THIS BOOK! It is excellent,
covering the basics and the more advanced stuff.

After a workshop earlier in the month I deceded to get into Rails, so
downloaded 1.0 and ordered the book. It has been an excellent companion
and
don’t know where I would be without it, especially as I’m relatively new
to
the whole Rails/Ruby thing.

10

The book is awesome, but beware that the section on accessing fixture
data
in unit tests is broken since 1.0 came around. Found that out the hard
way
the other night.

You used to be able to access fixture data like @my_product, but now
it’s
like products(:my_product)

Is a new PDF at least to cover the 1.0 stuff?

11

On Dec 29, 2005, at 12:53, Michael Bannister wrote:

Thanks everyone, you’ve reassured me. I’ll order it right now. :slight_smile:

Consider ordering the PDF version at http://
www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/rails/index.html

I had the dead tree version but bought the PDF version anyway
together with the Pickaxe book as PDF.

I find it much easier to read on the screen as I work my way through
the code, I work with two Terminals, the PDF in Preview, TextMate,
Safari and BiggerSQL open. Much faster way to work than reading a
book and then switch to the screen.

The hardest part is my insisting on using PostgreSQL instead of
MySQL, but I manage. :slight_smile:

And as everyone else is saying, it’s a great book.

Have a nice day
Morten

–
http://m.mongers.org/weblog/

12

I picked the book up before Christmas and find it to be very thorough
and enjoyable. I too am just learning RoR and the book has helped me a
ton in understanding the new concepts. Sometimes I have to reread
sections simply because I can’t seem to grasp some things very quickly,
but that is no fault of the authors.

John

13

I bought the PDF + printed book combo pack back when it was a beta
book. I’ve found that both versions have their uses; the PDF is easy
to search for stuff, but while working on my laptop it’s much handier
to have the book open beside me to refer to (this is something you’ll
want to do unless you are one of the lucky few blessed with 30 inch
displays).

Personally, I’d get the PDF + printed book combo pack of the book. You
might want to think of getting the PDF version of the Pickaxe if you
don’t already have it, last time I checked it was only 10 dollars if
you had the printed version already.

Dave

On 12/30/05, John S. [email protected] wrote:

Rails mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

–
Site: http://antidis.com/

14

On Dec 29, 2005, at 2:39 PM, subimage interactive wrote:

The book is awesome, but beware that the section on accessing
fixture data in unit tests is broken since 1.0 came around. Found
that out the hard way the other night.

You used to be able to access fixture data like @my_product, but
now it’s like products(:my_product)

Is a new PDF at least to cover the 1.0 stuff?

We’re working out the details, but there’ll definitely be an update
to cover this (and other changes since the book was written).

Dave

15

This is simply an option which was on by default and was turned off by
default but it is still a valid way to access fixture data, all you
have to do is change test_helper.rb (if you want it for all tests, or
add the following line at the beginning of the testcase where you want
it :

self.use_instantiated_fixtures = true

Cheers,

Jean