What do you think?
Rate this book
Addison-Wesley Professional Ruby Series
The Rails 3 Way
This encyclopedic book is not only a definitive Rails reference, but an indispensable guide to Software-as-a-Service coding techniques for serious craftspersons. I keep a copy in the lab, a copy at home, and a copy on each of my three e-book readers, and it's on the short list of essential resources for my undergraduate software engineering course.---Armando Fox, adjunct associate professor, University of California, Berkeley
Everyone interested in Rails, at some point, has to follow The Rails Way.---Fabio Cevasco, senior technical writer, Siemens AG, and blogger at H3RALD.com
I can positively say that it's the single best Rails book ever published to date. By a long shot.---Antonio Cangiano, software engineer and technical evangelist at IBM
This book is a great crash course in Ruby on Rails! It doesn't just document the features of Rails, it filters everything through the lens of an experienced Rails developer---so you come our a pro on the other side.---Dirk Elmendorf, co-founder of Rackspace, and Rails developer since 2005
The key to The Rails Way is in the title. It literally covers the "way" to do almost everything with Rails. Writing a truly exhaustive reference to the most popular Web application framework used by thousands of developers is no mean feat. A thankful community of developers that has struggled to rely on scant documentation will embrace The Rails Way with open arms. A tour de force!---Peter Cooper, editor, Ruby Inside
In the past year, dozens of Rails books have been rushed to publication. A handful are good. Most regurgitate rudimentary information easily found on the Web. Only this book provides both the broad and deep technicalities of Rails. Nascent and expert developers. I recommend you follow The Rails Way.---Martin Streicher, chief technology officer, McLarchy Interactive; former editor-in-chief of Linux Magazine
Hal Fulton's The Ruby Way has always been by my side as a reference while programming Ruby. Many times I had wished there was a book that had the same depth and attention to detail, only focused on the Rails framework. That book is now here and hasn't left my desk for the past month.---Nate Klaiber, Ruby programmer
As noted in my contribution to the "What is the Rails Way (To You)?," I knew soon after becoming involved with Rails that I had found something great. Now, with Obie's book, I have been able to step into Ruby on Rails development coming from .NET and be productive right away. The applications I have created I believe to be a much better quality due to the techniques I learned using Obie's knowledge.---Robert Baziner, InfoQ.com, .NET and Ruby community editor, and founding member of the Hartford, CT, Ruby Brigade
Extremely well written; it's a resource that every Rails programmer should have. Yes, it's that good.---Reuven Lerner, Linux Journal columnist
Everyone interested in Rails, at some point, has to follow The Rails Way.---Fabio Cevasco, senior technical writer, Siemens AG, and blogger at H3RALD.com
I can positively say that it's the single best Rails book ever published to date. By a long shot.---Antonio Cangiano, software engineer and technical evangelist at IBM
This book is a great crash course in Ruby on Rails! It doesn't just document the features of Rails, it filters everything through the lens of an experienced Rails developer---so you come our a pro on the other side.---Dirk Elmendorf, co-founder of Rackspace, and Rails developer since 2005
The key to The Rails Way is in the title. It literally covers the "way" to do almost everything with Rails. Writing a truly exhaustive reference to the most popular Web application framework used by thousands of developers is no mean feat. A thankful community of developers that has struggled to rely on scant documentation will embrace The Rails Way with open arms. A tour de force!---Peter Cooper, editor, Ruby Inside
In the past year, dozens of Rails books have been rushed to publication. A handful are good. Most regurgitate rudimentary information easily found on the Web. Only this book provides both the broad and deep technicalities of Rails. Nascent and expert developers. I recommend you follow The Rails Way.---Martin Streicher, chief technology officer, McLarchy Interactive; former editor-in-chief of Linux Magazine
Hal Fulton's The Ruby Way has always been by my side as a reference while programming Ruby. Many times I had wished there was a book that had the same depth and attention to detail, only focused on the Rails framework. That book is now here and hasn't left my desk for the past month.---Nate Klaiber, Ruby programmer
As noted in my contribution to the "What is the Rails Way (To You)?," I knew soon after becoming involved with Rails that I had found something great. Now, with Obie's book, I have been able to step into Ruby on Rails development coming from .NET and be productive right away. The applications I have created I believe to be a much better quality due to the techniques I learned using Obie's knowledge.---Robert Baziner, InfoQ.com, .NET and Ruby community editor, and founding member of the Hartford, CT, Ruby Brigade
Extremely well written; it's a resource that every Rails programmer should have. Yes, it's that good.---Reuven Lerner, Linux Journal columnist
708 pages, Paperback
First published September 3, 2010
17 people are currently reading
150 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 5, 2019
I been working with Rails professionally for more or less two years and I been toying with it since 1.2 or so. I wrote several gems and a couple of patches to Rails itself. I'm not a newbie. Yet, I learned a lot about this book. While reading I would very often come to work and change many lines of code to a better way of doing things. For someone with less experience than myself, this might be a goldmine.
Something to keep in mind. This is not a good first book on Rails. Maybe a second one. It's not for beginners. It's quite opinionated, there's no mention of erb or test::unit, instead, haml and rspec are shown. I use haml, but not rspec.
Something that surprised me about this book is how many editorial errors it has. Nothing technical, but comments like "put code sample here", a misplaced paragraph or cryptic lines that evidently were notes for the author or editor. Nevertheless, don't let that stop you from getting the great content in its pages.
Something to keep in mind. This is not a good first book on Rails. Maybe a second one. It's not for beginners. It's quite opinionated, there's no mention of erb or test::unit, instead, haml and rspec are shown. I use haml, but not rspec.
Something that surprised me about this book is how many editorial errors it has. Nothing technical, but comments like "put code sample here", a misplaced paragraph or cryptic lines that evidently were notes for the author or editor. Nevertheless, don't let that stop you from getting the great content in its pages.
November 22, 2011
An excellent reference, to be sure, but a fairly strong grasp of ruby (more than you'll get from tryruby.org) will help with comprehension. It also helps to have played around with Rails some before you even pick this book up.
August 7, 2011
Great coverage of Rails. It would make a great book for a beginner but experienced developers will find it useful as well. I hate the title, the juvenile joke was unnecessary.
August 17, 2011
A bit bulky, a good read for all Rails 3.0 newcomers. Hats off to Obie.
April 8, 2011
This is a great read and indispensable and exhaustive resource for RoR. I especially liked the sidebars by core Rails developers.
May 7, 2011
It has a few flaws but is a great coverage of Rails 3 and organised in a way that makes it a decent desk reference.
November 10, 2011
Nice reference to Rails 3. Must read for beginners.
March 23, 2018
Definitely a recommended read for intermediate Rails developers.
July 13, 2013
A good reference but does come from a Ruby perspective rather then a Rails perspective, thus you will need to strengthen your Ruby knowledge first.
September 18, 2012
Good overview.
February 14, 2013
Most read!
September 6, 2013
Good as a reference for looking up info on a specific subject, yet not the sort of book worth reading in its entirety.
August 28, 2015
Good as a reference as it covers too many details of rails 3. The book lacks for example and requires solid knowledge to understand things from a conceptual perspective.
August 10, 2011
Excellent.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews