Ruby on Rails: Up and Running - O'Reilly's Latest Release

For Immediate Release
For more information, a review copy, cover art, or an interview with
the authors, contact:
Kathryn Barrett (707) 827-7094 or kathrynb@oreilly.com

Seven Short Chapters to Lightening Fast Web Development with 
Ruby on Rails
O'Reilly Releases "Ruby on Rails: Up and Running"

Sebastopol, CA--Rails may just be the most important open source project
to be introduced in the last ten years. So claim Bruce Tate and Curt
Hibbs, authors of the just-released "Ruby on Rails: Up and Running"
(O'Reilly, US $29.99). They're certainly not alone in their belief.  Now
in its second year of existence, the framework has seen (by a conservative
estimate) more than half a million downloads. The publishing world has
rallied in support of Rails developers; in fact, by December 2006,
according to Tate and Hibbs, we're likely to see more books on Rails than
on any of Java's single flagship frameworks, including JSF, Spring, or
Hibernate.

What makes Rails different from the other quick-and-dirty environments out
there is that Rails lets developers keep the quick and leave the dirty
behind.  "It lets you build clean applications based on the
model-view-controller philosophy," Tate and Hibbs explain. "Rails is a
special framework."

"Ruby on Rails is the harbinger of a new way of developing software," adds
Hibbs. "Future generations of software developers will look back and
recognize this as the opening volley in a revolution that pushed
productivity to new heights."  Rich internet applications, Ajax, Web 2.0,
social web apps, interconnectedness, and mashups will all be part of this:
"Ruby on Rails is one of the enablers at the center of this revolution."

The advantage of using Rails is that development becomes much simpler;
programmers can focus on the creative parts of their applications rather
than on the wiring and plumbing. "Ruby on Rails: Up and Running" provides
a quick, no-nonsense introduction that takes developers from zero to full
speed in seven chapters (167 pages in all). The book shows how to build
real applications, covering everything from using scaffolding to "test the
waters" to writing responsive, user-pleasing applications with Ajax.

"Our book will quickly launch readers into a basic understanding of Ruby
on Rails, offering enough knowledge and guidance to point them down the
path of full mastery," says Hibbs. But the book goes even further. It
shows the established programmer, armed with nothing more than a little
Ruby knowledge, how to go beyond the basics and become productive in
Rails. The book covers:

-Using ActiveRecord to work with a database
-Using Migrations to modify a database without using SQL
-Modeling relationships between tables in a database
-Building controllers to express an application's fundamental operations
-Developing HTML views with templates
-Incorporating Ajax features into applications
-Writing unit tests, functional tests, and integration tests

Hibbs acknowledges that determined would-be Ruby on Rails users can find
most of the information in the book on the Internet. "However, if they
want the shortest, easiest way to jumpstart their knowledge of Ruby on
Rails, this book will save them a lot of time."

"Ruby on Rails: Up and Running" doesn't attempt to reiterate the reference
manual.  Instead, it presents the big picture of how Rails applications
hold together. It shows readers where to go for information that isn't
covered in the chapters. Readers will see how Rails dynamically adds
features to all database models, called Active Record objects. Then, by
understanding the big picture, they'll be able to make better use of the
best reference manuals to fill in the details. In short, this book gives
readers the foundation they need to get up and running.  If you want to
get started with Ruby on Rails, it's the book you have to have.

Additional Resources:

For more information about the book, including table of contents, index,
authors bio, and samples, see:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/rubyrails/

For a cover graphic in JPEG format, go to:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/rubyrails/cover.html

Ruby on Rails: Up and Running
Bruce A. Tate and Curt Hibbs
ISBN: 0-596-10132-5, 167 pages, $29.99 US, $38.99 CA
order@oreilly.com
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