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BW2 :: the bitwise supplement :: http://www.bitwisemag.com/2

Rails Solutions: Ruby On Rails Made Easy

17 April 2007

by Huw Collingbourne

Rails Solutions: Ruby On Rails Made Easy
by Justin Williams
Friends Of Ed: http://www.friendsofed.com
Computer Manuals (UK): http://www.compman.co.uk
ISBN-10: 1590597524
ISBN-13: 9781590597521
$34.99

There are now numerous books about Ruby On Rails and, before buying one, the question you must inevitably ask yourself is: ”So what’s different about this one...?” The answer to that question, according to the publisher of Rails Solutions, is ease of use or, as the blurb on the front of the book rather terrifyingly puts it, “no programming knowledge required”.

This claim, I have to say, immediately prejudiced me against the book. It is my firm belief that anyone creating a web site using a framework as complex as Rails and a language as powerful as Ruby damn’ well should have some programming knowledge. But, as the old saying goes, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover; so let’s see what the contents have to offer...

In around 260 pages, Rails Solutions leads the reader through the basics - What is Ruby? What is Rails? How to install Rails on Mac OS X and Windows (Linux is ignored) - and then moves on to development issues: creating models and controllers, validating data, migrations, ‘Bringing Forms To Life With Ajax’ and so on.

The chapters are all nicely laid out and divided up into bite-sized chunks, often starting with a question: ‘How Does Rails Do Ajax?’ or a brief description of the subject that follows: ‘Using helper methods in views’. There are a few screenshots to show you what you should see in your browser and a few diagrams to help explain object orientation, Rails migrations and so forth. For a book aimed at non-programmers there is also a surprising amount of program code.

Don’t Panic!

This is where the problem really lies. The author of this book is attempting to tackle an impossible task. Its opening paragraph states the problem:

"The book covers the Ruby on Rails programming framework, but don’t let that frighten you. Unlike many other programming books out there, this one isn’t written for programmers. This is a book for web designers and developers who are not at home with when trawling through reams of code."

I’m afraid I have a picture in my mind of a non-programming web designer getting to page 6 of this book and hitting the sentence, “Object-orientated programming is built on three basic principles: inheritance, encapsulation and polymorphism,” and suddenly experiencing a panic attack. By the time the poor sucker gets to page 11 (an easy introduction to Models, Views and Controllers), the author’s admission that “You might be a bit confused by now,” will probably strike a chord, though the soothing assertion, “Don’t worry. After you start working with Rails, you won’t even realize that you are working in a design pattern,” may not be entirely convincing.

Let me not spin out the agony any further. Fundamentally, I am not criticising the book itself which is perfectly decent. What I am criticising is its marketing. If this were really aimed at web designers rather than programmers, where are the chapters on using web design tools such as Dreamweaver? In my view, this would be a fine book for someone with experience in programming Ruby, or another object oriented language, who wants a fairly quick-and-easy way into Rails (though it is not as good, in my opinion, as O’Reilly’s Ruby On Rails Up and Running). If it were marketed at such, my review would be a good deal more favourable. Targeting non-programming web designers, however, is wilfully misguided.