Learning Rails 5: Rails from the Outside In

If you’re a web developer or designer ready to learn Ruby on Rails, this hands-on guide is the ideal way to get started. Rather than toss you into the middle of the framework’s Model-View-Controller architecture, as many books do, Learning Rails 5 begins with the foundations of the Web you already know.

You’ll learn how to create something visible with Rails’ view layer before diving into the more difficult inner layers: the database models and controller code. All you need to begin your Rails journey is HTML experience. Each chapter includes exercises and review questions to test your understanding as you go.

• Present content by building an application with a basic view and a simple controller
• Build forms and process their results, progressing from simple to more complex
• Use Rails scaffolding and REST to build effective applications quickly
• Connect forms to models and create code that maps directly to database structures
• Build applications that combine data from multiple tables
• Use migrations to track changes to your database over time
• Add common elements such as sessions, cookies, and authentication

If you’re a web developer or designer ready to learn Ruby on Rails, this hands-on guide is the ideal way to get started. Rather than toss you into the middle of the framework’s Model-View-Controller architecture, as many books do, Learning Rails 5 begins with the foundations of the Web you already know.

You’ll learn how to create something visible with Rails’ view layer before diving into the more difficult inner layers: the database models and controller code. All you need to begin your Rails journey is HTML experience. Each chapter includes exercises and review questions to test your understanding as you go.

• Present content by building an application with a basic view and a simple controller
• Build forms and process their results, progressing from simple to more complex
• Use Rails scaffolding and REST to build effective applications quickly
• Connect forms to models and create code that maps directly to database structures
• Build applications that combine data from multiple tables
• Use migrations to track changes to your database over time
• Add common elements such as sessions, cookies, and authentication

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Starting Up Ruby on Rails
Chapter 2 Rails on the Web
Chapter 3 Adding Web Style
Chapter 4 Managing Data Flow: Controllers and Models
Chapter 5 Accelerating Development with Scaffolding and REST
Chapter 6 Presenting Models with Forms
Chapter 7 Strengthening Models with Validation
Chapter 8 Improving Forms
Chapter 9 Developing Model Relationships
Chapter 10 Managing Databases with Migrations
Chapter 11 Debugging
Chapter 12Testing
Chapter 13 Sessions and Cookies
Chapter 14 Users and Authentication
Chapter 15 Routing
Chapter 16 From CSS to Sass
Chapter 17 Managing Assets and Bundles
Chapter 18 Sending Code to the Browser: JavaScript and CoffeeScript
Chapter 19 Mail in Rails
Chapter 20 Pushing Further into Rails
Appendix An Incredibly Brief Introduction to Ruby
Appendix An Incredibly Brief Introduction to Relational Databases
Appendix An Incredibly Brief Guide to Regular Expressions
Appendix Glossary