This book serves up a helpful and timely tutorial for the Rails developer contemplating authorship of a first Facebook application. No prior Facebook API or development knowledge is assumed, although those with some familiarity may find the reading less tedious. The text assumes use of the Facebooker plugin as the mediation layer between Rails 2.x (you should plan on using Rails 2.1) and the Facebook platform (API, FBML, etc.).

Michael writes in a clear, conversational prose that leaves the focus on the task at hand: To learn how to write a Rails Facebook application by following an example coding project from installation to functional coding to "socialization" and performance optimization. The simple-to-grasp Karate Poke application serves the reference need well, and the working code available enables the reader to see "how it works" as the book moves from topic to topic.

Rails-to-Facebook is much more than an "API". Michaels does a good job of showing how to leverage and use the various Facebook integration points. If there's one flaw that keeps reappearing, it is that Facebooker itself is so new and poorly documented. This book would be a 5-star rating if there was an Appendix A that mapped the Facebooker classes to the various Facebook fbml tags and API methods. Such would save the laboring reader many trips into the bowls of Facebooker code.

Finally, the author clearly put out a superhuman effort as he entered what typically is the final editing phase: This book covers much of the (as of late Summer, 2008) New Facebook Profile. It contains the best description of how to code Rails applications for the new FB platform that I've found anywhere. It is worth the price simply for the time it will save you trying to figure out how to get your soon-to-be Top Ten Facebook Application's Profile Box to show up in a Facebook user's Wall.