Rails for Java Developers

Front Cover
Pragmatic Programmer, 2007 - Computers - 311 pages

Many Java developers are now looking at Ruby, and the Ruby on Rails web framework. If you are one of them, this book is your guide. Written by experienced developers who love both Java and Ruby, this book will show you, via detailed comparisons and commentary, how to translate your hard-earned Java knowledge and skills into the world of Ruby and Rails.

If you are a Java programmer, you shouldn't have to start at the very beginning! You already have deep experience with the design issues that inspired Rails, and can use this background to quickly learn Ruby and Rails. But Ruby looks a lot different from Java, and some of those differences support powerful abstractions that Java lacks. We'll be your guides to this new, but not strange, territory.

In each chapter, we build a series of parallel examples to demonstrate some facet of web development. Because the Rails examples sit next to Java examples, you can start this book in the middle, or anywhere else you want. You can use the Java version of the code, plus the analysis, to quickly grok what the Rails version is doing. We have carefully cross-referenced and indexed the book to facilitate jumping around as you need to.

Thanks to your background in Java, this one short book can cover a half-dozen books' worth of ideas:

  • Programming Ruby
  • Building MVC (Model/View/Controller) Applications
  • Unit and Functional Testing
  • Security
  • Project Automation
  • Configuration
  • Web Services

From inside the book

Contents

Getting Started with Rails
1
Accessing Data with ActiveRecord
4
Testing
7
Copyright

18 other sections not shown

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About the author (2007)

Stuart Halloway is a member of Clojure/core and CTO at Relevance, where he spends his time on secret projects for world domination, and watching Phineas and Ferb. Justin Gehtland, a professional programmer, instructor, speaker and pundit since 1992, has developed real-world applications using VB, COM,.NET, Java, Perl and a slew of obscure technologies since relegated to the trash heap of history. His focus on "connected" applications led him to COM+, ASP/ASP.NET and JSP. Justin is the co-author of "Effective Visual Basic" and "Windows Forms Programming in Visual Basic.NET" (both Addison Wesley). He is currently the Agility columnist on The Server Side.NET, works as a consultant through his company Relevance, LLC, and teaches for DevelopMentor.