Ruby on Rails has shaken up the web development industry in a huge way—especially
when you consider that version 1.0 of Rails was only released in December 2005. The huge waves of enthusiasm for the new framework, originally in weblogs and later in the more traditional media, are probably the reason why this book is in your hands.
This book will lead you through the components that make up the Rails framework by building a clone of the popular story-sharing web site digg.com. This will give you a chance to get your feet wet building a simple, yet comprehensive web application
using Ruby on Rails.
While the first edition of this book hit the shelves shortly after Rails 1.2 was released, the Rails Core Team quickly hurried off to work on an even better and even more polished version of the framework—a version that was released in December of 2007 as Rails 2.0. Although seen as an evolutionary (rather than a revolutionary) update, Rails 2 features improvements in almost every corner of its comprehensive code base, hence the requirement to update this book. And the improvements continue:
as we go to press, the 2.1 release of Rails is imminent.
Without going into too many boring details, rest assured that with Rails 2 you have the fastest and most secure, concise, fun and rewarding version of Rails in existence. You get a secure web application almost out of the box; using the latest web technologies
such as Ajax has never been more accessible; and it’s just as easy to produce a well-tested application as it is not to do any automated testing.
If that’s all Klingon to you, don’t worry. I’ll get you started, and by the time you finish this book, you’ll be able to discuss all things Web 2.0 with your friends and coworkers, and impress your dentist with geeky vocabulary.

About the Author
Patrick Lenz has been developing web applications for more than ten years. Founder and lead developer of the freshmeat.net software portal, he and his Rails consultancy and web application development company, limited overload, are responsible for several community-driven web applications developed using Ruby on Rails. Patrick also authored some of the first articles to appear on the web about architecting and scaling larger Rails applications.
Patrick lives in Wiesbaden, Germany, with his wife Alice and his daughter Gwendolyn.
When not working in front of a computer, he can often be seen with a camera in his hand, either taking artsy pictures or documenting the progress of his baby girl conquering the world.1 He also enjoys cars, music, and extended weekend brunches with friends.
His weblog can be found at http://poocs.net/.

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See also...

• November 19, 2008 -- MooTools Essentials: The Official MooTools Reference for JavaScript™ and Ajax Development by Aaron Newton (0)
• June 29, 2008 -- Professional Ruby on Rails (1)
• November 7, 2008 -- Beginning Python: From Novice to Professional 2nd Edition by Magnus Lie Hetland (0)
• August 7, 2008 -- Apress Beginning Web Development Silvernight And ASP.NET Ajax by Laurence Moroney (1)
• August 13, 2008 -- Facebook API Developers Guide by Wayne Graham (0)

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