Rails Crash Course: A No-Nonsense Guide to Rails Development

Rails is a robust, flexible development platform that lets you build complex websites quickly. Major websites like GitHub, Hulu, and Twitter have run Rails under the hood, and if you know just enough HTML and CSS to be dangerous, Rails Crash Course will teach you to harness Rails for your own projects and create web applications that are fast, stable, and secure.

In Part I, you'll learn Ruby and Rails fundamentals and then dive straight into models, controllers, views, and deployment. As you work through the basics, you'll learn how to:
-Craft persistent models with Active Record
-Build view templates with Embedded Ruby
-Use Git to roll back to previous versions of your code base
-Deploy applications to Heroku

In Part II, you'll take your skills to the next level as you build a social networking app with more advanced Ruby tools, such as modules and metaprogramming, and advanced data modeling techniques within Rails's Active Record. You'll learn how to:
-Implement an authentication system to identify authorized users
-Write your own automated tests and refactor your code with confidence
-Maximize performance with the asset pipeline and turbolinks
-Secure your app against SQL injection and cross-site scripting
-Set up a server and deploy applications with Capistrano

Each chapter is packed with hands-on examples and exercises to reinforce what you've learned. Whether you're completely new to Ruby or you've been mucking around for a bit, Rails Crash Course will take you from the basics to shipping your first Rails application, fast.

Anthony Lewis has been building websites since 1994. A Senior Engineer at Spredfast (formerly Mass Relevance) and one of the developers behind the Spark social marketing platform, Lewis writes Ruby on Rails and JavaScript code daily. He runs workshops at the Lone Star Ruby Conference, provides in-depth Rails trainings, and is an active member of Austin on Rails.