Agile Web Development with Rails, 3rd Edition

Posted by David April 23, 2008 @ 09:06 PM

You asked for, heck, you demanded it, and now it’s becoming a reality. The original Rails book, Agile Web Development with Rails, is getting a facelift and the 3rd edition is now available as a beta book.

The book will be targeting Rails 2 and thus cover the many improvements in features and idioms that Rails have seen since the last edition of the book.

We also have a new author on board with the project: Sam Ruby. Sam co-authored the wonderful RESTful Web Services and have been involved with the Ruby and Rails communities for quite some time now. It’s fantastic to have him involved with the book.

Posted in Documentation | 33 comments

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  1. Joel on 23 Apr 21:47:

    Now we’ll actually have something to recommend to newbies again.

  2. Chris Thomson on 23 Apr 21:48:

    Damn, I just bought 2nd edition a month ago… :(

  3. Dave Thomas on 23 Apr 21:53:

    Chris:

    If you bought it from us, there’s be a free upgrade coupon when you log in to your account with us.

    Dave

  4. Sam Granieri on 23 Apr 22:12:

    Will this book be targeted at rails 2.1 by the time it’s released?

  5. James Kay on 23 Apr 22:44:

    I just bought and downloaded the current beta. So far it’s very close to the 2nd edition. Clearly it’s early days and future versions will change increasing amounts of the text as the publication date approaches.

    Do I need to re-purchase each version of the beta going forward or does my first purchase cover all versions of the beta until publication date?

    James

  6. Grzegorz Derebecki on 23 Apr 22:49:

    Will be some discount if i have second edition (i have also pdf buyed from pragprog.com)

  7. James Kay on 23 Apr 22:57:

    To answer my own question, pragprog.com states “This title is currently available in Beta. Buy it now, and you’ll be able to download successive releases of the PDF as the authors add material and correct mistakes. You’ll get the final PDF when the book is finished.”

  8. Sam Ruby on 23 Apr 23:31:

    Sam Granieri: the parts of the Depot application that I have ported already work on both 2.0.2 and edge. I plan to keep up with both the latest gem and edge up to the point where the book is published.

  9. jalilsan@gmail.com on 23 Apr 23:46:

    Will this book be targeted at rails 2.1 by the time it’s released?

  10. Yaphi on 23 Apr 23:59:

    @Dave Thomas

    You mean if I bought the 2nd edition I can get a free coupon for the 3rd (hard copy)? What’s the time frame?

  11. Jacob L on 24 Apr 00:00:

    craziness.. I haven’t even got a chance to read all of the 2nd edition yet…

    the framework really is on rails and you have to run and jump on it just like a train.. and every time I’m ready to jump, the whole thing gets some sort of speed boost… REST, Git, etc..

    I think I might just learn iWeb instead.. what do you guys think?

  12. @Jacob on 24 Apr 01:29:

    I’m reading into your post a bit of humor. But, that being said, Rails is charging ahead like a freight train, however, it’s not like that much as changed from the developer’s perspective.

    Pretty much all the stuff that you did in Rails 1.2 you can still do in 2.0 without any significant changes. That’s assuming you’ve taken care of any deprecation warnings along the way.

    Moving Rails to Git has little affect on those building applications using the framework.

    So jump on board at any time. It’s a ride worth taking.

  13. matt jankowski on 24 Apr 02:54:

    Dave and Dave – can I subscribe my company to an XX seat license of AWDWR? I’d expect at least quarterly updates, delivered via PDF, which were at least up to date with the latest stable release of rails, written up to the DHH/DT standard set by the first two books.

  14. iRuby on 24 Apr 03:59:

    Please do tell us how different this is from the previous 2nd edition. If not much overhaul, please honestly tell us that, cso computer books are just too damn expensive and then become useless so quickly..

  15. Peter Iwanowitsch on 24 Apr 08:14:

    I just bought 2nd edition a month ago. But i buy the 3rd edition :) Great book!

  16. Alex on 24 Apr 22:54:

    @dave thomas – How much new content is this beta edition so far? (already have 2nd, loved it)

  17. EH on 25 Apr 00:16:

    Sam Ruby…if that is your real name… ;)

  18. js0n on 25 Apr 01:34:

    I asked… and I demanded

    Thanks!

  19. Can't wait to get it! on 25 Apr 03:08:

    NiceeeeeeeeeeeE!!!!!!!!!!

  20. dreamer_0924@163.com on 25 Apr 08:06:

    When will it release??? Good news!!

  21. Gregory on 25 Apr 18:04:

    It seems that the offer for the free version 3 if you own version 2 is only if you purchased it from pragprog since march 8th or so.

    Still a much needed resource, glad this is being done :)

  22. Gamer on 26 Apr 01:35:

    Noticed, if the end of the month is over i will buy it and try it out.

    No matter that this book is “beta”, my english isn`t perfect, thats the reason why some failures doesn`t hurt me :)

  23. http://www.evdenevenakliyat.web.tr on 27 Apr 20:36:

    Good book.

  24. Sander on 28 Apr 03:54:

    I think you should seriously consider working out a friendlier upgrade policy for this book. At the rate of a new edition a year (or thereabouts), most folks are going to be spending a good deal of money chasing what seems to be a perpetual moving target. Oh, wait a minute, is that intentional? :-)

  25. Bob on 28 Apr 06:51:

    I don’t think it was their intention to do another edition this soon after, but there was a lot of clamoring within the community to bring out a 3rd Edition with the updates with Rails 2/2.1.

    I own the 2nd Edition and I’ll be right there for the 3rd.

  26. iRuby on 28 Apr 13:57:

    Sad… it is no longer that “pragmatic” to buy pragprog book anymore.. better stick with the PDF version…

  27. kk on 29 Apr 03:47:

    不错,赞,贵

  28. Dennis on 30 Apr 09:14:

    I just started working with rails and received the second edition two weeks ago. Damn… But that’s just another example for Murphy’s law.

  29. Atle on 30 Apr 13:57:

    @Sander: It’s not like you need to buy every edition that comes out, but this is very good news for beginning rails developers!

  30. Thomas on 30 Apr 15:30:

    Too bad the beta pdf is only available if you have a credit card, so many people cant buy it (outside us, credit cards are not that common). They should make paypal payment an option…

  31. DC on 07 May 15:10:

    In the mean time what book should a newbie (with some asp/asp.net development) buy?

    Please don’t recommend any Pdfs as I have zero use for anything that isn’t in dead tree format.

  32. rick@bearblu.com on 07 May 17:52:

    I guess not purchasing the 2nd edition looks like a smart decision now. Have you started on the 4th edition yet?

  33. liujie on 08 May 03:03:

    Great news !

Ruby on Rails was created by David Heinemeier Hansson, a partner at 37signals,
then extended and improved by a core team of committers and hundreds of open-source contributors.

Rails is released under the MIT license. Ruby under the Ruby License.

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