Positives are speed, depth and brevity. Fully enjoyed the speed with which the book covers the essentials. I did not have difficulty understanding this book maybe because I had read the Rails in Four days tutorial before reading this book. Eventhough it is a very short book, the price is reasonable given the pure muscle of the book. What is $30 if you can pick up this technology in 3 days? Negatives are - you need to read with concentration, does not have much code to cut and paste, does not discuss authentication. Overall excellent value for money if you are pressed for time.

For a newbie following the examples closely is generally a must; however, there are some "trivial" steps left out of the book ... that turn out to be necessary to get the sample projects moving. Given the brevity of the content, the inaccuracies of the samples, and the high price ... my suggestion is to look elsewhere.

This book made use of an earlier version of Rails, but if you aren't totally clueless and have the wisdom to read warnings from IDEs, generation scripts and the server, you can actually get the code running.

BTW, 99% of the code works without warnings/errors at all. FWIW, I switched to Mac OS X to do this (from Dell using XP), so I was fighting a lot of other differences besides having a more modern Rails, and I actually got through it all. Also, I am an old Java/C++ programmer... so if somebody younger than me cannot get this stuff, maybe they should think carefully about whether programming is for them (Rails development is still programming).

This is a hands-on, bottom up book. I did wrestle a bit with reading the chat about the code *then* coding or coding the code and *then* reading the explanations. It was *fun* to use this book and I really enjoyed using this book for getting a visual, and (for me) potentially useful application running.

Best of all, IMO... the core material is under 150 pages! Hard to find such terse and useful books these days. If anyone remembers the power and elegance of K&R's C book, you'll appreciate this fact.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

[1] Uses Rake for migrations and yes on a modern Rails (pre 2.0) you will see deprecation notices that tell you what you need to do... either way it works.

[2] Uses some deprecated start_forms_tag but guess what, if you have the internet you google around and you figure it out. And you know what then? You own what you learn and are not just spoon fed the code.

[3] Does not go deep into theory.

[4] You best try your hand at Ruby first just so you can read Rails code... ummmm it uses Ruby ya know.

[5] Is not TDD or BDD... so you are coding the evil, old fashioned way. Unless you are Donald Knuth (who claims to have no need for unit testing).

[6] Be careful during the DB migrations section, I screwed up the order of some things, I don't think the book misled me. I also figured my way out of it while also learning how to get around SQLite3's command shell. No whining from those spoiled by pushbutton IDEs please.

[7] This book will not make you a Rails guru, it opens the door and gives you working code base to head down that road. You'll still have other books, blogs, and Wikis ahead of you.

Buy it for pre Rails 2, I assume it is still largely applicable to Rails 2, which came out last year (end of).

While this book does not require it, I found using NetBeans IDE with Ruby/Rails support helped me get the coding done much faster than using VIM or TextEdit. I did not use it to generate the application and the components. For that I used the Rails command line scripts per the book.

I definitely will avoid both authors in the future.

I can't fathom how O'reilly "approved" these authors to write such book with so many ridiculous errors from typos to just blatant errors.

I supposed O'reilly is also declining in terms of quality (See my "Learning Ruby", "Learning JavaScript" review as well).

Bad:
1) Too many errors
2) Outdated (Rails is 2.0, the book, rushed, is using 1.1)
3) Too pricey
4) Bruce A. Tate always jumped shipped form one language to another with no deep interest/experience in each of the "new languages"
5) You're building the examples based on "scaffolding" auto-generation

Good:
1) That I told you not to buy this book.
2) That Bruce is no longer writing more books (yet)
3) That others also echoed the same complains

This is a great book, and I recommend you consider it, but for a couple reasons you might not want to buy it.

First, it's a great *short* overview of the process of developing Ruby on Rails apps. I found that I understand all the things I've read elsewhere but it's sometimes hard to put it all together and remember all the steps in a logical sequence. Because of the magic of Rails (and its use of metaprogramming and code generation and other groovyamazing stuff, you have to learn to THINK DIFFERENTly about development. While you're in the process of making the mental shift, both conceptually and syntactically, it's good to have cheatsheets to simply REMEMBER what works, and which magical incantation does which thing. There are plenty of cheatsheets for Rails and Ruby, but none that I've seen that are like this: all the basics, in sequence, with clear explanation.

Think of it as a stepping stone between DHH's screencast and his Agile Web Develpment with Rails (written mostly by Dave Thomas), which is a little on the long side for a first book. (It's much better to get a firmer grasp of the big picture before focusing in on details. Sorry about the mixed metaphor.)

However, you should note that it is now quite old and in need of updating. It is also frustratingly full of errors: spelling, grammatical, factual, and technical. So be forewarned. If you can put up with all that, however, it's very useful, and clearly written. O'Reilly just needs to fire all their proofreaders.

I read through this in an afternoon in a bookstore. I'm wondering... Why would you get this book when for several dollars more you could get the bible of Ruby on Rails: "Agile Web Development with Rails (Pragmatic Programmers)?"



Where this book is overly terse and covers the bare minimum of subjects, AWDwR has lots of details and examples. Get that book and the companion Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition and you're all set for some fun evenings.



Tate has a habit of rushing books out (e.g., Spring: A Developer's Notebook) and this is another one of those. It occurs to me that this book should have been in that "Developer's Notebook" series...



Tate has been ringing the death knell of Java for several years now and extolling the virtues of THE NEXT BIG THING (in this case, Ruby on Rails). He oughta slow down and figure out at least one of these technologies before he attempts to write about it.



Ironically, the next paradigm shift from Java to RoR will probably happen in spite of Mr. Tate's exposition. Stick to AWDwR, you won't be sorry.

I read through this in an afternoon in a bookstore. I'm wondering... Why would you get this book when for several dollars more you could get the bible of Ruby on Rails: "Agile Web Development with Rails (Pragmatic Programmers)?"

Where this book is overly terse and covers the bare minimum of subjects, AWDwR has lots of details and examples. Get that book and the companion Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition and you're all set for some fun evenings.

Tate has a habit of rushing books out (e.g., Spring: A Developer's Notebook) and this is another one of those. It occurs to me that this book should have been in that "Developer's Notebook" series...

Tate has been ringing the death knell of Java for several years now and extolling the virtues of THE NEXT BIG THING (in this case, Ruby on Rails). He oughta slow down and figure out at least one of these technologies before he attempts to write about it.

Ironically, the next paradigm shift from Java to RoR will probably happen in spite of Mr. Tate's exposition. Stick to AWDwR, you won't be sorry.

This book is a really nice book if you only want a cursory overview at a quick pace and have another, better reference. The photo sharing example is not very helpful to me, I don't share photos. I write websites with forms for businesses that uses a db back end and lot's of web services. The db part of rails is the only part of rails covered, not much on creating web forms, not much on deployment, nothing on web services, not enough on rails AJAX integration, generally not enough of anything. I did buy this book thinking I would get a better value of it than I did, but it is definitely overpriced. If you decide to purchase this book, get a used one in good condition - the price will be more appropriate.

To get the best use out of this book, buy or have handy a more in-depth companion book. Also note, a lot of the book has become deprecated by newer versions of rails, so it is a bit out of date.

A good RoR book that breaks down the basics into easy digestible concepts.

.. you can think if this book as a reference book.

An up & running book should:
1. Start with a hello world
2. Do 4-5 projects illustrating important concepts to get started.

You should just pass on, if your expectations are like mine.

.. you can think if this book as a reference book.

An up & running book should:
1. Start with a hello world
2. Do 4-5 projects illustrating important concepts to get started.

You should just pass on, if your expectations are like mine.

Here's the problem with Ruby: it's got new object oriented concepts that C++, Java, and C# people won't be able to leverage their full experience.

Here's the problem with Rails: it's so well thought out and so terse, that if you actually start searching for source code that's implementing particular behavior, you come up empty handed -- how does one pick up a library where "the right thing" just happens with "no code"?

Yes, you can pick up a book on Ruby, but just knowing the language syntax and libraries doesn't introduce you to the Ruby Way of doing things. Conversely, picking up a book on Rails won't do you much good unless you know many of the clever tricks of Ruby. All in all, it's a steep learning curve, but the knee of the curve is within reach, then suddenly it flattens out. Consider it a short impedance, but with reasonable effort, greatly rewarding.

This book focuses on getting someone who knows little of Ruby and nothing of Rails up and running - it exposes what's going on under the hood so that when you're done with the book, you're able to get what's going on and dive into the other books with ease.

For example, object messages and method invocations are different beasts in Ruby! You can send a message to an object that doesn't have a corresponding method, rather than throwing an exception, it can divert the message to one or more objects, or even examine the message and invoke some other method. When you send a message GetInvoiceByCustomerId, there is no method with that name, Rails uses reflection on the database to build an SQL statement and return you the correct object, as if by magic.

This book will get you up and running with a real example, including covering the magic of AJAX, and leave you ready for the Pragmatic Programmer series.

Here's the problem with Ruby: it's got new object oriented concepts that C++, Java, and C# people won't be able to leverage their full experience.

Here's the problem with Rails: it's so well thought out and so terse, that if you actually start searching for source code that's implementing particular behavior, you come up empty handed -- how does one pick up a library where "the right thing" just happens with "no code"?

Yes, you can pick up a book on Ruby, but just knowing the language syntax and libraries doesn't introduce you to the Ruby Way of doing things. Conversely, picking up a book on Rails won't do you much good unless you know many of the clever tricks of Ruby. All in all, it's a steep learning curve, but the knee of the curve is within reach, then suddenly it flattens out. Consider it a short impedance, but with reasonable effort, greatly rewarding.

This book focuses on getting someone who knows little of Ruby and nothing of Rails up and running - it exposes what's going on under the hood so that when you're done with the book, you're able to get what's going on and dive into the other books with ease.

For example, object messages and method invocations are different beasts in Ruby! You can send a message to an object that doesn't have a corresponding method, rather than throwing an exception, it can divert the message to one or more objects, or even examine the message and invoke some other method. When you send a message GetInvoiceByCustomerId, there is no method with that name, Rails uses reflection on the database to build an SQL statement and return you the correct object, as if by magic.

This book will get you up and running with a real example, including covering the magic of AJAX, and leave you ready for the Pragmatic Programmer series.

This book is a great starting point for anyone who wants to get started using Ruby on Rails (RoR). I am a web developer of 9 years and wanted to learn more about Ruby because one of my Web Hosts has gone to a RoR platform. This book was perfect to get me started in the right direction. The author is very clear in his descriptions, and also very easy to read. I really like the book. My only complaint is that it is a bit dated (not much, and even so, you still learn a great deal of RoR that you can apply right away) I just noticed a few commands were used that have since been depricated. Great read, great learning tool.

Although the book is overpriced, the value I have gotten from it makes it worthwhile. Like others, I did not pay list for it.

I had previously purchased the Pragmatic Programmers book on Rails. The book was too big. I doubt that I ever opened it. This book is thin and simple.

In each chapter I make a list of the action items, things that I am expected to do. I also make a list of results that I am expected to see. I check them off as I do them.

The result is that for the first time I am doing a little RoR. It gets me started. I agree that there are filename typos. For instance, in the first chapter the controllers directory is called the controller directory.

I don't agree with the person who says that this book is not for people who read it in front of a computer while they have internet access. That is exactly who it is for. I do read the chapter first to see what I have to do, but then I go over it again in front of the computer.

All in all, I am well-pleased with this book, because it got me off of my duff and into RoR.

By the way, the section on installing RoR is peculiar. They tell you in the first chapter to install RoR using Gems. I did that and it worked like a charm. One command, basically.

But in the Appendix on installing Rails it says that there is no simple way to install RoR on Unix. In fact, Gems was as simple as can be.

It is probably true, sadly, that the book is rushed. But judged by its value to me I rate it quite highly. Other than typos I don't know if spending more time on the book would have made it any better.

I did a few of the tutorials on the RoR site, and felt I had a good enough handle on it to jump into the big tomes on ruby. I purchased Rails Recipes and couldn't get even the first recipe to work. I felt that I needed to go to training wheels before riding.

This book, so far, has been thorough and explanatory, about what Ruby on Rails is and what it can do. It breaks down and explains the parts of the app and what they do. If you are looking for a book on how to build rich apps in Ruby in Rails, look elsewhere. This is for beginners and is a great book to reference until you're comfortable with it.

It's exciting to see OReilly put out literature on this technology. I'm looking forward to the Rails Cookbook once I get it down.

I gave it a four because I'm not all the way through it. But it is good. You do have to be comfortable with programming languages and working through a shell. The resources they provide are also pretty cool.

Good work, Oreilly! How about a sweepstakes to win 10 Oreilly books of your choice?

In this book, the authors walk you through the creation of a simple Photo Share project that has a simple enough structure that a Rails beginner will be able to quickly understand what's going on. The authors don't try to cover each new feature. Instead, they show you the ones they see as the backbone, forming the most important elements to understand. They also cover migrations and Ajax in some detail, because you won't find too much information on those two frameworks in other books yet. This book was written for experienced developers who are new to Rails and possibly to Ruby. To use this book, you don't have to be a strong Ruby programmer, but you should already be a programmer. The following is the table of contents:

Chapter 1. Zero to Sixty: Introducing Rails - You create a Rails project. You also created a controller and invoke it from a browser. Then, you create a view and learn how views can interact with controllers and with the Ruby language.

Chapter 2. Active Record Basics - You create a database schema and let Rails use the schema to generate your model. Then you use a Rails framework to help manage relationships between the different parts of the application.

Chapter 3. Active Record Relationships - You look at managing relationships between Active Record classes. You'll see most types of Active Record relationships in action by adding functions to your application.

Chapter 4. Scaffolding - The next step is to use scaffolding to build primitive web user interfaces for these classes. Scaffolding will take you a good ways down the road, but it won't generate a completed application.

Chapter 5. Extending Views - Scaffolding doesn't manage relationships, so you can't see or edit the photos associated with a category or the slides in a slideshow. The views are also ugly and incomplete. In this chapter you use the generated scaffolding as a base and build a more complete user interface.

Chapter 6. Ajax - Here you learn how Ajax techniques can reclaim some of the fluidity and responsiveness that has been lost to web applications via the Photo Share project.

Chapter 7. Testing - You'll create a well-tested application by using Rails to actively generate default test cases and setting up scripts and tools to run three different kinds of tests.

Appendix A. Installing Rails
Appendix B. Quick Reference

As you can see, this is not a reference book. It simply gets you to understand the process of using Rails via a rather simple application. You'll definitely need other books to get further into Rails, but this is a great first book on the subject.

I think you have to decide how you will use the book before you purchase it. If you are going to learn Ruby on Rails while sitting in front of a computer with Internet access the whole time, then this book may not be for you.

If your like me and you spend time on airplanes and other places where internet access is limited then downloading the Ruby, Rails framework and the source from this book gives you most of what you need to make your flight more productive.

That being said the book is not worth the 29 dollars retail, but most people are not going to pay that anyway. I think it is worth the 20 dollars Amazon charges though.

This has been said already, but I'll add my "me too": In a nutshell, this book will tell you what Rails is capable of, but not really how to do it.

This is an OK book. It has a neat application that is developed throughout the chapters. However, it has the feel of a book that was rushed to market. Not that there are errors because there aren't. It's just that there isn't enough background material to fully grasp the concepts.

Consider reading the Beginning Ruby on Rails book from Wrox before this book. The material in this book will be much more meaningful if you do.

This updated, revised 4th edition provides high school and college-level students with an updated, modern guide to the latest Internet resources, revising the history sites on the Net and including an expanded, updated cd-rom to cover the latest details on over 3,000 web sites, US, European and World history, and more. What makes this more valuable than just surfing for the same information is the doublecheck of each site by experts in their fields to assure high quality of materials and presentation. Ten new chapters here also handle environmental and business history, immigration and oral history, and futurism. And these are more than just web addresses: each comes with a synopsis of what's covered, making it possible to be specific in searches - and saving lots of time in the process.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I love books like this -- get in, get out, get on with it. I'm incredibly busy these days. (Who isn't?) Gone are the days where I can afford to hunker down with a 1,000 page tome, and quite frankly I just don't want to anymore. I place real value in brevity in computer books. This isn't Shakespeare. This is business. Let's get on with it.

Maybe I'm biased; Ruby on Rails: Up and Running takes the same approach that my co-author and I took with JBoss At Work. Rather than a series of disjointed "Hello World" examples, Up and Running starts with a simple application and builds it iteratively through the end of the book. Seeing the application in action, coming to life one chapter at a time, is both rewarding and educational. My copy is dog-eared from repeating the same steps, in order, for the next several applications that I got "up and running" on my own.

If you're looking for an exhaustive reference guide, this isn't the right book. (Agile Web Development with Rails, by Dave Thomas and David Heinemeier Hansson might be a better fit.) Up and Running is more like an afternoon pair-programming session with a couple of really sharp guys. The back cover copy says it all: "...a quick, no-nonsense introduction that shows you how to build real applications."

As the other reviewer has noted, this book is very expensive for the price. Looks like the author is just trying to make quick money on the sudden popularity of Rails.

There are likely to be any number of reviews on this book mentioning these two points:
1) The book appears small.
2) The content is fast paced.

Ditto on both counts.

The book is designed to give you the fastest introduction to Ruby on Rails, and it does that by presenting the instructions required and the purpose, but is light on the reasons why and what to do if things go wrong. It also omits the common sections such as environment setup and editing files. While this doesn't always cause huge problems it does require some experience in the user.

The lessons in "Ruby on Rails: Up and Running" are arranged as a series of improvement on a photo display project, where each project builds on the concepts required to build a web application. The good part is that each presents a working solution, but is of lesser use when your requirements don't match exactly and the code is not explained completely.

The book is great, as far as it goes, but it would have been better if the time had been taken to expand the concepts and given complete coverage. This way it gets you started faster as long as everything goes without a hitch, but will take you longer if you get something wrong or don't quite understand. It also makes it possible target audience smaller due to the assumptions on prior knowledge.

I'm in two minds about this book, but one thing I know for sure; I wish that this book was around when I started off on my Rails journey, minus the mistakes and the bad representation though!

Bruce and Curt take you from a very fast paced intro to a fairly complete and professional photo sharing application. Personally I will go back to this application when I want to experiment with Rails/Ruby.

They describe the Active record, the corner stone of Rails, adequately and after working through chapters 2 and 3 you should have a fair grasp of the how rails implements the active record pattern. I especially liked their use of the ruby console to show the reader how certain things work. I personally feel that too few Rails programmers use the power of the console to experiment with Ruby, remember you learn by experimentation.

They then go ahead and show how you can build a quick and dirty interface with the "controversial" scaffolding around the database you created in chapters 2 and 3. This where Rails shines for me; as scaffolding allows you to get something up and running fast. Their coverage of this subject is more than adequate.

In chapter 5 Bruce and Curt take the rough-and-dirty generated Rails application and turn into a pretty professional looking application using style sheets. Nothing new here but it shows you where and how you do it under/in Rails.

Chapter 6 uses the power of Ajax to add the icing on the cake for the photo application. A great intro as to how Ajax is implemented/used under Rails.

Chapter 7 describes the automated testing functionality in Rails and this for me was the chapter I benefited the most from. I'm a mainframe programmer that has taken up Rails, and Ruby with it, as a hobby and this automated testing is foreign to me. So this book has shown me how to test the right way in/under Rails.

The book ends with a summary and pointers to where more information can be found. Basically the appendix is one large cheat sheet of Rails that can come in handy as your Rails knowledge grows.

Personally I think that the books formatting SHOULD be improved, for instance it should be made much clearer to the reader when he has to do something and boy the reviewers, editor(s), whoever deserves the blame, must be shot for allowing so many typos to slip through.

In the beginning I said I was in two minds about this book, basically this is because I'm not sure if I should recommend this book.

On the one side I feel this book is worth purchasing. I really do feel, even with the typos and faults, that with hard work and care you will learn what Rails is all about and that this book will give you a solid foundation to get you started on your Rails, and Ruby, journey.

On the other side I feel that as a paying customer you deserve better, there is nothing more frustrating than learning something new and the tutorial you use to learn it is full of mistakes.

Awesome book. That's all I can really say. I know PHP, some perl, a little VB, and that's about all about a week or two ago. I looked at "Agile Web Development with Rails", "Programming Ruby", and a bunch of online tutorials. I could not grasp the concept and had no clue what I was doing.

It seemed as if the "Programming Ruby" book is good for beginners that have no experience programming. The Agile Web Development with Rails book was good, but I thought it did not do a great job explaining what to do and how to do it.

That is where this book comes in. This book was great because it takes you (step by step) through an example and actually explains why you do what you're doing.

I admit, I'm still learning...but at least, after reading this book, I can use it as a reference point of what to do and how to get started.

I own just about every RAILS book written and this is one of the worst with regard to the quality of the examples and code as provided in the book. If you follow the author's instructions and code as provided in the book, you will run into a number of errors when using the Instant Rails in a Windows PC environment. For a beginner, this is going to prove frustrating. This leads me to an interesting point: a good book for the absolute beginner RAILS developer does NOT yet exist. That said, the book is somewhat pricey for what the author provides. While not a beginner book, the best Rails book on the market today for the money is Rails Recipes.

It's the best beginner's book available, I think. It's not an in-depth manual that you'll be using at your desk for years to come, but it's not intended to be one. It is a very good introduction to "How to think in Rails," which I believe was sorely needed.

Other tutorials and books tell you what's possible in Rails, but not what's best. Or, they tell you 'how', but not 'why'. If you're coming to RoR from another MVC framework, that might be enough, but if you're coming from a procedural language, or have little Web programming experience, this book is just right.

It seems that you hear a lot about Ruby and Ruby on Rails these days... the hot new language. As I haven't found the time yet to dig into Ruby, I really couldn't tell you what the "Rails" part of this equation means. Bruce A. Tate and Curt Hibbs have written a book called Ruby on Rails - Up and Running. I think it somewhat misses the target that it shoots for, but it does have value for the right audience...

Contents: Zero to Sixty - Introducing Rails; Active Record Basics; Active Record Relationships; Scaffolding; Extended Views; Ajax; Testing; Installing Rails; Quick Reference; Index

This is a concise book (160+ pages) that doesn't go into much background on Ruby, nor does it try to be an exhaustive guide to Rails. It's a "here's what it is, here's how to get it working quickly" approach that dives right in and gets dirty quickly. From that perspective, I thought the book was a good "next step" for the Ruby developer who wants to start using the Rails framework. My main quibble is that the authors state that the book is "for experienced developers who are new to Rails and possibly to Ruby. To use this book, you don't have to be a strong Ruby programmer." I would contend that the "possibly to Ruby" statement is wrong. If you are new to Ruby, this book is going to lose you in short order. Conceptually, you'll be able to see how easy it is to build database-backed websites using Ruby on Rails, but all the code will pretty much be stored for future reference once you figure out Ruby first.

Perhaps I'm just not smart enough to make certain assumption leaps that the authors expected, but I found I'm not quite ready to use this book yet. That's not to say the book is of no value. If you've learned Ruby and you're ready to take the next step to Rails, this is definitely a decent choice for a quick immersion without wading through 900 pages of technical reference. But if you haven't learned Ruby yet, you might want to delay this purchase a bit...

I don't write many reviews but was so let down with the quality of writing and editing on this title, that I wanted to chime in.
Ruby on Rails is not the quality of writing I expect from O'Reilly. Some things aren't explained well or are technically incorrect. The editing has similar flaws. On more than one page there are entire sentences repeated in the same paragraph. This simply wasn't ready for print, but would be acceptable as a "Rough Cuts" or pdf pre-release edition.

I was attracted to the size of the book, and that is the one thing that shines. Learning rails solely from the manual and tutorial it ships with is challenging since the meta-programming hides the code. This book does a good job of de-mystifying how the pieces relate and how you can customize a Rails based application beyond the "hello world" phase.

I cannot recommend this book to someone who is new to Ruby, programming, or web programming due to the pour quality of the book. Experts can guess at many of the typos and fill in the gaps themselves.

If time isn't an issue, I would recommend another volume. If you are short on time and have read a million other programming titles, this one suffices.

This is indeed a fast-paced book designed for experienced developers. Using it, I was able to build the Photo Share project it covers rather quickly. I got a good overview of how Rails works, too.

But while I appreciate the end result, I wasn't always so sure what I did or why I did it. The introduction of concepts is *so* fast and terse that I found it hard to connect concepts to practice. The section on Rails Strengths, on pp. 2-3, could certainly have been stronger on this point. Still, the points the authors wanted to make about the power of the Rails environment was unmistakable.

I disagree with the premise of the book about its intended audience. Web-oriented programmers are certainly ideal for this book; other programmers are going to struggle. A great deal of conceptual background is taken for granted. Because Rails make so many understood connections between components, it's worth a few more pictures and diagrams to illustrate those relationships. The many diagrams on data table structure were not as helpful to me.

There are errata that can be quite annoying if you are following along carefully. Mis-stated filenames crop up now and then. In a few cases I followed the book exactly and lost a bit of functionality. The book does not advise on error paths or what to do when something goes wrong, so if you're not making file backups or otherwise tracking your changes, you'll go down a rat-hole or two.

On the whole, the book has a feel of being a bit rushed and breathless, rather than merely short in form. This means going over the material several times. Often I found a key piece of information buried in a paragraph when a bullet point would have made it easier to spot. I know people are bullet-shy these days, but when you're writing real information as opposed to concepts, listing it out is helpful.

My review copy came free, so I can't complain about price. That said, I wouldn't buy this book at the price it wants.

Given that this book is only 127 pages long without the Appendix, it's a pretty pricey little item. I liked the content of the book, and certainly learned a lot about how to bring up a Rails application, but a $29.99 retail price seems exorbitant.

In this first edition there are also plenty of typos and some errors in the example code (VERY frustrating). Luckily the corrected source code can be downloaded from O'Reilly free.

I would have given this item 4 or 5 stars if it would have been half the price. Alternatively, this little book would make a great introduction to a more comprehensive book on Rails. Stand-alone, it feels like a rip-off.

In my opinion, this is the best introduction currently available to Rails development. It goes beyond the glancing articles (such as Hibbs's "Rolling with Ruby on Rails" series, which is quite good) while not being quite as exhaustive as Thomas's "Agile Web Development With Rails", but I think it hits the sweet spot as a launching pad in there. I was able to go from here to learning and working with Rails, building on the foundations I got from this book.

A point of style: this is an introductory tutorial. It is not a reference book (although it does include a really good reference appendix, at least until someone writes a pocket guide). Also, to compare this book to AWDWR, this book tends to present concepts in an order that made sense to me, using examples that made sense for the concept. In contrast, AWDWR presents many concepts in the order that makes sense for the example application, but I found made less sense for learning the specific concepts. I know people who like both methods (and like just learning from the reference manual), so your mileage may vary. That said, this is the book I recommend to people looking to get started in Rails (at least, until 1.2 comes out and changes everything).

[Disclosure: I was a reviewer for this book. I was also learning Rails at the time. ]