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Ruby on Rails Tutorial: Learn Web Development with Rails (Addison-wesley Professional Ruby) 4th Edition
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“Ruby on Rails™ Tutorial by Michael Hartl has become a must-read for developers learning how to build Rails apps.”
— Peter Cooper, Editor of Ruby Inside
Used by sites as varied as Twitter, GitHub, Disney, and Airbnb, Ruby on Rails is one of the most popular frameworks for developing web applications, but it can be challenging to learn and use. Whether you’re new to web development or new only to Rails, Ruby on Rails™ Tutorial, Fourth Edition, is the solution.Best-selling author and leading Rails developer Michael Hartl teaches Rails by guiding you through the development of three example applications of increasing sophistication. The tutorial’s examples focus on the general principles of web development needed for virtually any kind of website. The updates to this edition include full compatibility with Rails 5, a division of the largest chapters into more manageable units, and a huge number of new exercises interspersed in each chapter for maximum reinforcement of the material.
This indispensable guide provides integrated tutorials not only for Rails, but also for the essential Ruby, HTML, CSS, and SQL skills you need when developing web applications. Hartl explains how each new technique solves a real-world problem, and then he demonstrates it with bite-sized code that’s simple enough to understand, yet novel enough to be useful. Whatever your previous web development experience, this book will guide you to true Rails mastery.
This book will help you
- Install and set up your Rails development environment, including pre-installed integrated development environment (IDE) in the cloud
- Go beyond generated code to truly understand how to build Rails applications from scratch
- Learn testing and test-driven development (TDD)
- Effectively use the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern
- Structure applications using the REST architecture
- Build static pages and transform them into dynamic ones
- Master the Ruby programming skills all Rails developers need
- Create high-quality site layouts and data models
- Implement registration and authentication systems, including validation and secure passwords
- Update, display, and delete users
- Upload images in production using a cloud storage service
- Implement account activation and password reset, including sending email with Rails
- Add social features and microblogging, including an introduction to Ajax
- Record version changes with Git and create a secure remote repository at Bitbucket
- Deploy your applications early and often with Heroku
- ISBN-100134598628
- ISBN-13978-0134598628
- Edition4th
- Publication dateNovember 7, 2016
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions7 x 1.82 x 9.13 inches
- Print length804 pages
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Praise for Michael Hartl’s Books and Videos on Ruby on Rails
“My former company (CD Baby) was one of the first to loudly switch to Ruby on Rails, and then even more loudly switch back to PHP. (Google me to read about the drama.) This book by Michael Hartl came so highly recommended that I had to try it, and the Ruby on Rails(TM) Tutorial is what I used to switch back to Rails again.”
–From the Foreword by Derek Sivers (sivers.org)
Formerly: founder of CD Baby
Currently: founder of Thoughts Ltd.
“Michael Hartl’s Rails Tutorial book is the #1 (and only, in my opinion) place to start when it comes to books about learning Rails. . . . It’s an amazing piece of work and, unusually, walks you through building a Rails app from start to finish with testing. If you want to read just one book and feel like a Rails master by the end of it, pick the Ruby on Rails(TM) Tutorial.”
–Peter Cooper, editor, Ruby Inside
“For the self-motivated reader who responds well to the ‘learn by doing’ method and is prepared to put in the effort, this comes highly recommended.”
–Ian Elliot, reviewer, I Programmer
“Ruby on Rails(TM) Tutorial is a lot of work, but if you’re careful and patient, you’ll learn a lot.”
–Jason Shen, tech entrepreneur, blogger at The Art of Ass-Kicking
“Michael Hartl’s Ruby on Rails(TM) Tutorial seamlessly taught me about not only Ruby on Rails, but also the underlying Ruby language, HTML, CSS, a bit of JavaScript, and even some SQL–but most importantly it showed me how to build a web application (Twitter) in a short amount of time.”
–Mattan Griffel, co-founder & CEO of One Month
“Although I’m a Python/Django developer by trade, I can’t stress enough how much this book has helped me. As an undergraduate, completely detached from industry, this book showed me how to use version control, how to write tests, and, most importantly–despite the steep learning curve for setting up and getting stuff running–how the end result of perseverance is extremely gratifying. It made me fall in love with technology all over again. This is the book I direct all my friends to who want to start learning programming/building stuff. Thank you Michael!”
–Prakhar Srivastav, software engineer, Xcite.com, Kuwait
“It doesn’t matter what you think you will be developing with in the future or what the framework du jour is; if you want to learn how to build something, there is no better place to start than with this tutorial. And for all the ‘non-technical’ people out there who want to see their ideas come to life, who are considering hiring contractors, paying for a class, or ‘founder dating’ in the search for a technical co-founder: stop. Take a step back. Forget about your idea for a short while and immerse yourself in this tutorial to learn what it takes to put something together. You and your software-related projects will be better for it.”
–Vincent C., entrepreneur and developer
&l
About the Author
Michael Hartl is a best-selling author and founder of the educational website LearnEnough.com. His prior experience includes writing and developing RailsSpace, an extremely obsolete Rails tutorial book, and developing Insoshi, a once-popular and now-obsolete social networking platform in Ruby on Rails. In 2011, Michael received a Ruby Hero Award for his contributions to the Ruby community. He is a graduate of Harvard College, has a Ph.D. in Physics from Caltech, and is an alumnus of the Y Combinator entrepreneur program.
Product details
- Publisher : Addison-Wesley Professional; 4th edition (November 7, 2016)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 804 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0134598628
- ISBN-13 : 978-0134598628
- Item Weight : 2.72 pounds
- Dimensions : 7 x 1.82 x 9.13 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,556,175 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #80 in Ruby Programming
- #2,448 in Computer Programming Languages
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Michael Hartl is a physicist and entrepreneur. He is the author of over a dozen books, including Learn Enough Python to Be Dangerous and the Ruby on Rails Tutorial, and was cofounder and principal author at Learn Enough (acquired 2022). He is also the founder of Tau Day and author of The Tau Manifesto. Previously, Michael taught theoretical and computational physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he received a Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching and served as Caltech’s editor for The Feynman Lectures on Physics. He is a graduate of Harvard College, has a Ph.D. in Physics from Caltech, and is an alumnus of the Y Combinator entrepreneur program.
Customer reviews
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In the Top Tech Tutorial Books I Have Read
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2017Of several recommended texts for the Coursera "Ruby on Rails Web Development," I chose this one after a brief read of the first few pages of each book. This text will get you up-to-speed relatively quickly on its subject. I have the advantage of programming experience in several languages, though I am no expert programmer. Nonetheless, this tutorial takes you step by step through the development process in a logical and pedagogical manner. With some computing and programming skills, one should be able to follow along easily.
The use of "technical sophistication" as a pedagogical method is praiseworthy. It allows one to develop important skills, techniques, and understanding of the material along the way. And, after all, this is what one needs from a tutorial, right. Highly recommended.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2016I have done multiple Rails tutorials online, all of them were great for getting an app up and running but they all have left me wondering "well...I made an app, but what did I actually just do?". Not this one, I am up to Chpt. 7 in the book version and already I have a deeper understanding and better sense of clarity of how Rails works and what I am doing to make it work then before. The testing of the sample app as I make progress in this tutorial is a huge part of why I am beginning to really understand how Rails works. No other tutorial that I have done ever even mentioned testing or Test-Driven Development. Great tutorial, thank you!
- Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2016The content of this book is awesome. So I highly recommend reading this book to get started in Rails.
However, the eBook is UNUSABLE. It is FREE online at railstutorial dot org, so why did I just pay $30? Not only that, but you CAN'T CUT AND PASTE when using Kindle on PC or on the kindle cloud reader, which in a programming book, is a hellish nightmare. Never again will I buy a programming book on Kindle. I bought the book and am using the free online version anyways, so I can cut and paste. Thus, I immediately "returned" the eBook and got my money back.
It's not his fault that Kindle sucks for coding books. But I'm not really sure why it's being sold for >$30 when it's free online. Doesn't seem right. That's why i'm giving 4 stars, and not 5.
- Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2017Extremely in-depth for a Ruby-on-Rails tutorial book. Dives you deep into critical, complex features of RoR with example projects (you get to follow along and build yourself) that you can visualize being used in industry-leading scenarios. Very professionally written, edited and published with fantastic quality. Text is easy to follow for a beginner, but also complex and detailed enough for the serious IT professional using this as a primer into RoR. I would highly recommend this as being a top book to have if you're getting to Ruby on Rails for your own development/experimentation, or if you're an IT professional, as a primer into more complex RoR topics after running through this.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2020No human actually looked at the final typeset book: the table of contents & significant bits of the text are unreadable because most of the letters are left out for text set in certain styles. For instance, in the table of contents all the chapter titles are mangled. First title is typical:
F om Z o o D loy
This was meant to be from "From Zero to Deploy". This goes on all through the book. I understand that bugs happen but that is why we have humans.
One can guess past the errors but this is just inexcusable.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2019Great book to learn Ruby on Rails, building simple apps before diving into the full one helped me get familiar with the Rails framework and some of its capabilities.
Learning languages and learning web development are two different things and the latter is done through this book very well. I recommend both for anyone looking to learn software development. Especially if you want to become a fullstack developer.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2016Great Material
I've been in the IT industry for about 10 years but I have been avoiding programming for quite some time. I've heard about Michael's book from following Derek Sivers and it doesn't disappoint.
The material builds up your skill set in a very methodical way. I have learned so much and I'm only half-way through the material.
The material in this book has given me the confidence, that with hard work and great reference materials, I can definitely become an engaged and proficient programmer in Ruby.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2018I brought this based on the 5 star reviews. As a teaching/tutorial book it is fantastic, the guy knows his stuff and knows how to impart the knowledge. The concept of publishing even baby apps to the web is fantastic, and the constant use of git puts good practices in your fingers. Which brings me to why only 3 stars.
Every chapter we start on a new git hub branch, and rather than post that branch for reference to git hub, one is FORCED to type reams of small print code into ones editor. This causes the reader to spend far to long chasing typo bugs instead of learning the excellent material. Copying printout into the computer is so 1980s it hurts. Imaging if you could go to the latest branch and check your work against that. Some might say well do it against the final version, but when your on chapter 5 the final version is so far ahead of where your at it makes tracking down the differences and how they map to the chapter you are on as complex and error prone as typing from the book.
I'll be returning this, shame as the book has great information and teaching
Top reviews from other countries
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Elexsandro RangelReviewed in Brazil on January 10, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Execlente livro para obter uma base sólida de desenvolvimento em Rails
Recomendo este livro a todos aqueles que desejam compreender como desenvolver aplicações web utilizando o framework Rails.
O livro está baseado em desenvolver uma aplicação com autenticação e listagem de microposts utilizando bancos relacionais.
O ponto fraco é que não aborda a integração com banco não relacionais, tais como o MongoDB e Cassandra, nem a autenticação via JWT (JSON Web Token), mas as bases criadas com o estudo desta obra facilitam em muito a compreensão e aplicação de tais integrações com o Rails.
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JBAReviewed in Spain on August 22, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars El mejor libro para aprender desarrollo PROFESIONAL de web-apps.
Este es el tutorial con el que finalmente aprendí a programar web apps. Es programación en Ruby y Rails lo que significa que da gusto escribir código, no como en otros lenguajes, que es una pesadilla.
Su objetivo es enseñarte programación a nivel profesional. Lo que significa que no solo te enseña a programar, sino también utilizar herramientas de desarrollo de nivel profesional. Aprendes a utilizar:
- la línea de comandos unix,
- un entorno de desarrollo integrado (IDE),
- control de versiones (git),
- mantener un repositorio remoto,
- subir regularmente código al servidor de producción (online).
Es un TUTORIAL lo que significa que hay que ir trabajando con el ordenador para poder seguir el aprendizaje.
Empiezas desde cero y al acabar habrás hecho y puesto online un clon de twitter. Lo que es bastante alucinante. Aunque no es de extrañar dadas sus 750 páginas de explicaciones, intrucciones precisas y código.
Yo le dediqué varios meses de (mucho) trabajo y no podría estar más contento con lo aprendido.
Si lo vas a seguir para aprender desarrollo web, ten en cuenta que requerirá tiempo pero al final tendrás tu recompensa.
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Gomy AiReviewed in Mexico on July 26, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Muy buen libro
Excelente libro para introducirte al mundo de RonR. lo ando usando y se ve bien hasta ahora.
contiene imagines y ejemplos.
recomendado
- BilalReviewed in Canada on May 28, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect: Hands-on and thorough.
If you want to learn web-development with the rails framework, this is the book to get.
- Mr. E. D. ThompsonReviewed in the United Kingdom on December 13, 2016
5.0 out of 5 stars Read this book to learn useful professional skills
I highly recommend to learn a methodology for web development using Ruby on Rails by reading this book. The author shows how to develop web apps which are robust using Test Driven Development,
This book can also be used as a useful introduction to software engineering in general. Learning the principles behind this book will give the reader tools of technical sophistication meaning that solutions will be found to perceived insurmountable problems.