"Rebuilding Rails" Book by Noah Gibbs
Today's GiveGetWin offer is highly specialized -- it's a copy of Noah Gibbs's "Rebuilding Rails" book for only $14.95 (usual price: $40) due to the charitable nature of GGW. This is a book for Ruby programmers that's already had an extremely enthusiastic reaction. Noah is graciously making 15 copies available at the discounted price.
We'll let Noah take over and explain why he wrote Rebuilding Rails, he started with the question:
How Would An Expert Learn Rails?
After three hours of searching incomplete and inconsistent API documentation, you know there must be a better way. The real experts don't learn it this way.
How would they learn how Rails works?
Like this:
"The magic thing about Rails is when I looked at it the first time, I knew how it worked because I already knew Ruby really well.
I saw all the metaprogramming tricks; they were almost transparent, looking at it. But I didn't know you could put it together that way and create something so expressive and succinct. " — Chad Fowler, episode 1 of The Ruby Hangout (0:41:48)
Build Your Framework
With Rebuilding Rails, you'll build an MVC web framework, structured like Rails and using the same underlying libraries and tricks. You'll learn the magic behind Rails. You'll finish each system and solidify your knowledge with structured exercises. And you'll understand Rails like only a framework builder can.
Reactions to Rebuilding Rails
Future-Proof Mastery
When your upgraded controller and filter code raises yet another exception, it's because Rails changed under you. When you apply a few tweaks you Googled and it's only mostly fixed, you know there's a better way.
There is.
You can learn the fundamentals of every Ruby web framework in a future-proof way... by learning the layer that Rails is building on. To learn Rails the way the experts do, you'll have to learn Rack, Ruby's portable HTTP API.
That's hard. The Rack documentation is often wrong and frequently gives you only the name of a method or class, not what in the world it actually does.
Rebuilding Rails will take you through building a real, functional Rack framework. Building on Rack is the only way to really understand Rack.
Debug Rails, Minus the Frustration
You've spent hours tracing through before_filters and plugins. You've wondered why your controller variable isn't being passed through. You've spent your share of days on five-minute bugs.
You'll do better when you can see more of what's underneath.
But to do that, you can read a lot of source code... Or you can rebuild it yourself. Get the gut-level, instinctive understanding of Rails that you can only get by building it yourself.
Next time you debug a Ruby web app, what if you knew how every layer worked?
What You'll Learn
Every chapter of Rebuilding Rails is about building a system from Rails. Models, controllers, database access, routing...
- Gems, Gemfiles and Frameworks
- Controllers and Routing
- Automatic Class and File Loading
- Views and Templating
- Models from Files
- Requests and Responses
- ORMs and Database-Backed Models
- Advanced Rack for All Frameworks
- Advanced Routing
Every chapter teaches you more Ruby magic, which makes Rails more transparent.
Should You Be a Rebuilder?
You should rebuild if:
- You're an intermediate Rails programmer and want to go deeper
- You want to contribute to Rails, but have no idea how it works
- You love to know how everything works
- You want to learn at your own pace, but blog posts are just too shallow
Do NOT buy if:
- You're entirely new to Ruby
- You know you can't learn from a self-paced book
- You're a seriously advanced Rails programmer and already read the source code regularly
- The style in the sample chapters really doesn't work for you
Worried that you need more Ruby or Rails chops? I recommendMichael Hartl's excellent Rails 3 tutorials, available for free online.
You'll Have Noah's Support
Noah is committed to helping you get to higher levels in Ruby programming and achieving your goals. When you buy Rebuilding-Rails from him at $40, he commits to giving you his personal email address, and a promise to read every message and I reply quickly. He says "Email me before your purchase and after it. I love hearing from readers."
He's got the same level of commitment here -- you'll be receiving his hands-on support, all book updates, and full first-class readership status.
Noah's an author, speaker, paid Rails expert for Carnegie Mellon, professional Ruby programmer and the author of a lot of Ruby and Rails software.
Noah's goal is for more people to understand Ruby and Rails. He's happy help you.
If you think is an awesome thing he's doing, definitely jump in quickly since there's only 15 copies available at this price, and spread the word to others about Noah's excellent book -- you can find his standard Rebuilding Rails site at http://rebuilding-rails.com . And if you like the content we're making at GiveGetWin, get in touch with us at support@givegetwin.com if you'd like to offer a product or service with the proceeds to helping charity, and/or want to participate in the project.
Once you buy, you'll be personally put in touch with Noah Gibbs and shortly after receive DRM-free copies in pdf, mobi, and epub formats. Noah's making 15 copies available, so grab yours today.