Beginning Ruby on Rails E-Commerce: From Novice to Professional

• #18 in Best Ruby Books

10 Reviews

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It's too bad this wonderfully written book is so full of errors. Did the authors run out of time to check the sample code? I spent days and days trying to get the sample code given in the book to work. The book version of the code didn't match the downloaded version and both were loaded with errors. After chapter four I gave it up as a lost cause. My list of errata was so extensive that I didn't bother to send it to the publisher because I had invested far too much time in the book already. I'm guessing the rave revues this book received were from readers that simply read the book and didn't try the sample application code.

While I really hate to slam down the authors of the book, this text really offers nothing to readers that isn't in better form elsewhere. The text is ridden with buggy code, incomplete explanations, and the style of coding leaves much to be desired. The "Agile Web Development with Rails" text (also available on [...]) builds nearly the same application (an eCommerce site), but does so while explaining the rails framework as well as offering up a solid reference textbook style for later use.

I teach graduate level computer science, and switched my curriculum to Ruby on Rails this term for my "Complex Websites" course. I reviewed many books, and this one ended up at the bottom of the pile. Sorry.

Beginners must stay away from this book. It does not mention anywhere that you must install RedCloth to get the textilize method working. There are too many errors in the book to mention them all here. The code given in the book fails to run due to a bug in the Rails code, one of the problem is due to the assert_tag bug in Rails. The fix shown on the reviewer's website does not solve all the problems. Again the book does not even mention about the workaround. After many hours of frustration you have to find out from other developers on the Rails mailing list.

For a beginner, it is very frustrating when the book fails to mention when the fixtures need to be updated to make the code work. Even after copying all the code for the corresponding chapters from the downloaded source, it still gives errors.

Buyers be careful about the other reviews giving 5 stars for this book. For an objective view and to see the problems with this book, search the Ruby on Rails mailing list on the title of this book. You will see how many developers are having the same problem.

You can buy this book only after the publisher fixes all the errors. Otherwise you will end up with lot frustration and wasted time and energy.

I am not done with this book yet and have taken a detour in going through David Black's Ruby For Rails book first. Those who have NO significant prior development experience and are not comfortable picking up on minor omissions on their own should stay away from this book.
But people with experience especially in Web Development who are a bit operating system savvy and can work around minor gliches will find this book a tremendous resource. Moreover, one of the authors has started a web discussion group to discuss these specific problems. I have quite a bit of experience in Web E-Commerce development, and I find this book a fundamental resource is teaching me how powerful indeed Ruby on Rails is for integrating some of the more specialized technologies such as search engines. I also found that the "lack" of Ruby experience was becomiing a factor in being able to thoroughly understand and leverage the wealth of information presented in the book. Hence I took the detour into David Black's book which is also very good. The only reason I did not give a full five star rating to this book is that the omissions can indeed send you off on a tangent researching things which should otherwise take a short time.

This is not the best Ruby book (pickaxe), nor the best Rails book (DT+DHH's AWDWR). It is not even the best for Rails tips and tricks (Fowler's Recipes). But it does give an outstanding picture of how an RoR application can be evolved from simple beginnings, applying and enhancing the original app through to a professional shopping cart solution.

This book would serve really well as the guide (and starting point) on a RoR journey for a VB or Java developer who was impatient to try RoR. Get the basics up and running and extend. Deals well with the enterprise/development lifecycle and how it relates to RoR development including testing. etc.

Just buy it (and the others listed above). You won't regret it.

Gerard Byrne

Once in a while a book gets written that makes your life as a programmer easier; this book is one of them.

Why you might ask? Well to start off with I can use +/- 60% of their demo application, emporium, as a basis for a application I've started writing; and my application has absolutely nothing to do with a book store. Their application addresses common tasks i.e. standard CRUD, security, multiple language support etc. things you will encounter in any web-based application. They show you how to solve them the Rails way.

I've never fully understood the fuzz about the Test Driven Design and I thought that writing test code before writing the actual code meant you were bananas. I know better know. If you follow their advice and example, boy do they write a lot of test code in their application, releasing your code to production won't be the dreaded "gone is my weekend" event it used to be. Thank you for showing the way guys.

I also like their writing style, it is as if you are part of the discussions with the user, George, as the application evolves from an idea till a pretty sophisticated amazon type clone. Everything is done using extensive user stories and you fully understand their reasons for their solution to the problems.

Even though this book is not a reference book I'm quite sure I will return to it often when writing my own application(s) to see how the authors did something. As such I have one small gripe I wish the formatting made it easier to find things.

This book has everything you need to take your level of understanding / knowledge of Rails to higher level and as a bonus it will also make you a better programmer general; I highly recommend this book.

This book is an awesome and in depth look at all aspects of building a successful e-commerce site. It guides you through the development of a working e-commerce site using Test Driven Development and Rails best practices. It was worth every penny.

Overall, I really liked the book. It targets Rails 1.1 for the most part, so you won't learn 1.2-specific goodness like RESTful architecture and block-yielding form helpers, but it presents a wealth of information and does so in a very readable way. From payment gateways to full-text search, to I18N and L10N to Capistrano, you'll find it a great resource for launching your own e-commerce site in Rails.

this book is an excellent introductory book to ruby on rails. i read chapters 1 through 9 (out of 13) for now, for work. i read _agile web development with rails_ as my first rails book, and although that was also a good book, i would highly recommend _beginning ruby on rails e-commerce_ first before _agile_ to a rails newcomer, especially to one looking for a gentle introduction, and/or may feel rusty with past programming.

_beginning ruby on rails e-commerce_ is very readable. the story that you follow to build an online bookstore flows naturally and easily. the order/presentation of the material covered to learn about for rails from how to set up controllers, models, and views to installing plug-ins and gems needed to integrating a bit of ajax-related tools is extremely organized and well done.

getting an authorize.net account can take a few/several days, so i recommend requesting one online about a week before you anticipate working through chapter 9: checkout and order processing.

there are several typos, some easily noticeable and others not, some that do cause problems if you didn't know about them. therefore, it would be a good idea to follow along with the errata online available at the apress site in a browser tab as you work through the book. i myself submitted about a dozen typos that were not included in the errata at the time of this review.

overall, this book is very well done. there haven't been many technical books i have read that i have been thrilled with, and this is one of those few. i went through a shared work copy, and anticipate purchasing a copy for myself soon.

Would've been a good book without spending half of it focusing on the jargon of their own methodology called "user stories" or some silly crap like that.
Good software always meets the same stages of development regardless of the flavor-of-the-month name or metaphor for the same crap.

That said, the book is otherwise absolutely sound, full of good information. And would be great if you weren't being distracted by their strange methodology naming.