The Rails 4 Way (5 Copy Package)

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The Rails 4 Way

About the Book

The beta period for this book is over. Get your own paper and electronic versions at InformIT or Amazon and other traditional booksellers.

In less than ten years, with fanatical support of a veritable army of open source contributors, Ruby on Rails has forcefully taken its place as the dominant king of web frameworks. It has conquered developer mindshare at startups and enterprises alike with its focus of simplicity, convention and clean, maintainable code. The latest version, Rails 4, continues the tradition of enhanced performance, security and developer productivity, with improvements that enable professional developers to focus on what matters most: delivering business value quickly and consistently.

The Rails™ 4 Way is the only comprehensive, authoritative guide to delivering production-quality code with Rails 4.1. Pioneering Rails expert Obie Fernandez and his team of leading Rails experts illuminate the entire set of Rails APIs, along with the idioms, design approaches, and libraries that make developing applications with Rails so powerful. Drawing on their unsurpassed experience and track record, they address the real challenges development teams face, showing how to use Rails to maximize your productivity.

Using numerous detailed code examples, the author systematically cover Rails key capabilities and subsystems, making this book a reference that you depend on everyday. He presents advanced Rails programming techniques that have been proven effective in day-to-day usage on dozens of production Rails systems and offers important insights into behavior-driven development and production considerations such as scalability. Dive deep into the subtleties of the asset pipeline and other advanced Rails topics such as security and scalability. The Rails 4 Way is your best guide for making Rails do exactly what you want it to do.

Notable Changes in the new edition

  • Discussion of "omakase" versus "prime" Rails stacks (as advocated by DHH vs TRW, et al)
  • Ruby 2.0 support in Rails
  • Native support for new Postgres Data types and enhancements in ActiveRecord
  • ActiveModel::Model "a really small, handy addition to Rails 4.0, which helps us to get classes that act more like ActiveRecord and easily integrate with ActionPack."
  • Asset Pipeline and Sprockets
  • Russian Doll-caching through key-based expiration with automatic dependency management of nested templates
  • Livestreaming for persistent connections
  • Comprehensive coverage of security topics (new chapter, including addition Strong Parameters)
  • Changes in HTTP handling in Rails: PATCH vs. PUT
  • Turbolinks (and significant updates to the Ajax chapter)
  • New comprehensive "Essential Gems" appendix highlighting the best add-on libraries that the Rails ecosystem has to offer

About the Authors

Obie Fernandez
Obie Fernandez

The "one and only" Obie Fernandez is an avid writer and technology enthusiast, in addition to achieving worldwide success as an electronic music producer and touring DJ. He currently serves as Director and Chief Consultant of MagmaLabs, headquartered in Colima, Mexico.

Obie's last jobby job was SVP of Engineering at NYC tech darling 2U. He has been CTO and co-founder of many startups including Mark Zuckerberg's beloved Andela and Trevor Owen's Lean Startup Machine. His published books include the acclaimed business title The Lean Enterprise. He also founded one of the world's best known Ruby on Rails web design and development agencies, Hashrocket and is author of the bible of Rails development, The Rails Way and series editor for Addison-Wesley's Professional Ruby Series.

On the rare occasion when Obie is not busy building products, consulting clients or writing books, you can find him behind the lens of his camera or DJing in the dust at Burning Man.

Follow @obie on Twitter or email him at obiefernandez@gmail.com 

Kevin Faustino
Kevin Faustino

Kevin Faustino is the founder and Chief Craftsman of Remarkable Labs, a boutique development agency specializing in Ruby on Rails. His career as a developer began in 2005 and he has been specializing in Ruby since 2008. Kevin is also the founder of the Toronto Ruby Brigade which hosts tech talks, hack nights and book clubs.

Follow @kfaustino on Twitter or email him at kevin@remarkablelabs.com.

Vitaly Kushner
Vitaly Kushner

Vitaly Kushner is a co-founder of Astrails, the best known Ruby on Rails consulting company in Israel. He has more then 20 years of industry expeerience in a wide range of technologies, from Sinclair Basic to Linux kernel drivers. Vitaly started using Rails in 2005, and it still serves as the primary "weapon" at Astrails for developing web applications and mobile backends.

Vitaly is a public speaker and has been promoting Ruby and Rails in Israel since 2006 when he helped organising and managing first Israeli Ruby Group. Vitaly speaks at conferences and teaches Ruby on Rails courses.

Follow @vkushner on Twitter, check out Astrails blog or email Vitaly at vitaly@astrails.com.

Table of Contents

  • Foreword
  • Foreword (to The Rails 3 Way)
  • Foreword (to The Rails Way)
  • Acknowledgments
  • About the Authors
    • Obie Fernandez
    • Kevin Faustino
  • Introduction
    • About This Book
    • Recommended Reading and Resources
    • Goals
    • Prerequisites
    • Required Technology
  • 1 Rails Environments and Configuration
    • 1.1 Bundler
    • 1.2 Startup and Application Settings
    • 1.3 Development Mode
    • 1.4 Test Mode
    • 1.5 Production Mode
    • 1.6 Configuring a Database
    • 1.7 Configuring Application Secrets
    • 1.8 Logging
  • 2 Routing
    • 2.1 The Two Purposes of Routing
    • 2.2 The routes.rb File
    • 2.3 Route Globbing
    • 2.4 Named Routes
    • 2.5 Scoping Routing Rules
    • 2.6 Listing Routes
    • 2.7 Conclusion
  • 3 REST, Resources, and Rails
    • 3.1 REST in a Rather Small Nutshell
    • 3.2 Resources and Representations
    • 3.3 REST in Rails
    • 3.4 Routing and CRUD
    • 3.5 The Standard RESTful Controller Actions
    • 3.6 Singular Resource Routes
    • 3.7 Nested Resources
    • 3.8 Routing Concerns
    • 3.9 RESTful Route Customizations
    • 3.10 Controller-Only Resources
    • 3.11 Different Representations of Resources
    • 3.12 The RESTful Rails Action Set
    • 3.13 Conclusion
  • 4 Working with Controllers
    • 4.1 Rack
    • 4.2 Action Dispatch: Where It All Begins
    • 4.3 Render unto View…
    • 4.4 Additional Layout Options
    • 4.5 Redirecting
    • 4.6 Controller/View Communication
    • 4.7 Action Callbacks
    • 4.8 Streaming
    • 4.9 Variants
    • 4.10 Conclusion
  • 5 Working with Active Record
    • 5.1 The Basics
    • 5.2 Macro-Style Methods
    • 5.3 Defining Attributes
    • 5.4 CRUD: Creating, Reading, Updating, Deleting
    • 5.5 Database Locking
    • 5.6 Where Clauses
    • 5.7 Connections to Multiple Databases in Different Models
    • 5.8 Using the Database Connection Directly
    • 5.9 Other Configuration Options
    • 5.10 Conclusion
  • 6 Active Record Migrations
    • 6.1 Creating Migrations
    • 6.2 Data Migration
    • 6.3 schema.rb
    • 6.4 Database Seeding
    • 6.5 Database-Related Rake Tasks
    • 6.6 Conclusion
  • 7 Active Record Associations
    • 7.1 The Association Hierarchy
    • 7.2 One-to-Many Relationships
    • 7.3 The belongs_to Association
    • 7.4 The has_many Association
    • 7.5 Many-to-Many Relationships
    • 7.6 One-to-One Relationships
    • 7.7 Working with Unsaved Objects and Associations
    • 7.8 Association Extensions
    • 7.9 The CollectionProxy Class
    • 7.10 Conclusion
  • 8 Validations
    • 8.1 Finding Errors
    • 8.2 The Simple Declarative Validations
    • 8.3 Common Validation Options
    • 8.4 Conditional Validation
    • 8.5 Short-form Validation
    • 8.6 Custom Validation Techniques
    • 8.7 Skipping Validations
    • 8.8 Working with the Errors Hash
    • 8.9 Testing Validations with Shoulda
    • 8.10 Conclusion
  • 9 Advanced Active Record
    • 9.1 Scopes
    • 9.2 Callbacks
    • 9.3 Calculation Methods
    • 9.4 Single-Table Inheritance (STI)
    • 9.5 Abstract Base Model Classes
    • 9.6 Polymorphic has_many Relationships
    • 9.7 Enums
    • 9.8 Foreign-key Constraints
    • 9.9 Modules for Reusing Common Behavior
    • 9.10 Modifying Active Record Classes at Runtime
    • 9.11 Using Value Objects
    • 9.12 Non-Persisted Models
    • 9.13 PostgreSQL enhancements
    • 9.14 Conclusion
  • 10 Action View
    • 10.1 Layouts and Templates
    • 10.2 Partials
    • 10.3 Conclusion
  • 11 All About Helpers
    • 11.1 ActiveModelHelper
    • 11.2 AssetTagHelper
    • 11.3 AtomFeedHelper
    • 11.4 CacheHelper
    • 11.5 CaptureHelper
    • 11.6 CsrfHelper
    • 11.7 DateHelper
    • 11.8 DebugHelper
    • 11.9 FormHelper
    • 11.10 FormOptionsHelper
    • 11.11 FormTagHelper
    • 11.12 JavaScriptHelper
    • 11.13 NumberHelper
    • 11.14 OutputSafetyHelper
    • 11.15 RecordTagHelper
    • 11.16 RenderingHelper
    • 11.17 SanitizeHelper
    • 11.18 TagHelper
    • 11.19 TextHelper
    • 11.20 TranslationHelper and the I18n API
    • 11.21 UrlHelper
    • 11.22 Writing Your Own View Helpers
    • 11.23 Wrapping and Generalizing Partials
    • 11.24 Conclusion
  • 12 Haml
    • 12.1 Getting Started
    • 12.2 The Basics
    • 12.3 Doctype
    • 12.4 Comments
    • 12.5 Evaluating Ruby Code
    • 12.6 Helpers
    • 12.7 Filters
    • 12.8 Haml and Content
    • 12.9 Configuration Options
    • 12.10 Conclusion
  • 13 Session Management
    • 13.1 What to Store in the Session
    • 13.2 Session Options
    • 13.3 Storage Mechanisms
    • 13.4 Cookies
    • 13.5 Conclusion
  • 14 Authentication and Authorization
    • 14.1 Devise
    • 14.2 has_secure_password
    • 14.3 Pundit
    • 14.4 Conclusion
  • 15 Security
    • 15.1 Password Management
    • 15.2 Log Masking
    • 15.3 SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)
    • 15.4 Model mass-assignment attributes protection
    • 15.5 SQL Injection
    • 15.6 Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
    • 15.7 XSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery)
    • 15.8 Session Fixation Attacks
    • 15.9 Keeping Secrets
    • 15.10 Conclusion
  • 16 Action Mailer
    • 16.1 Setup
    • 16.2 Mailer Models
    • 16.3 Receiving Emails
    • 16.4 Server Configuration
    • 16.5 Testing Email Content
    • 16.6 Previews
    • 16.7 Conclusion
  • 17 Caching and Performance
    • 17.1 View Caching
    • 17.2 Data Caching
    • 17.3 Control of Web Caching
    • 17.4 ETags
    • 17.5 Conclusion
  • 18 Background Processing
    • 18.1 Delayed Job
    • 18.2 Sidekiq
    • 18.3 Resque
    • 18.4 Rails Runner
    • 18.5 Conclusion
  • 19 Ajax on Rails
    • 19.1 Unobtrusive JavaScript
    • 19.2 Turbolinks
    • 19.3 Ajax and JSON
    • 19.4 Ajax and HTML
    • 19.5 Ajax and JavaScript
    • 19.6 Conclusion
  • 20 Asset Pipeline
    • 20.1 Asset Pipeline
    • 20.2 Wish List
    • 20.3 The Big Picture
    • 20.4 Organization. Where does everything go?
    • 20.5 Manifest files
    • 20.6 Custom format handlers
    • 20.7 Post-Processing
    • 20.8 Helpers
    • 20.9 Fingerprinting
    • 20.10 Serving the files
    • 20.11 Rake Tasks
    • 20.12 Conclusion
  • 21 RSpec
    • 21.1 Introduction
    • 21.2 Basic Syntax and API
    • 21.3 Matchers
    • 21.4 Custom Expectation Matchers
    • 21.5 Shared Behaviors
    • 21.6 Shared Context
    • 21.7 RSpec’s Mocks and Stubs
    • 21.8 Running Specs
    • 21.9 RSpec Rails Gem
    • 21.10 RSpec Tools
    • 21.11 Conclusion
  • 22 XML
    • 22.1 The to_xml Method
    • 22.2 The XML Builder
    • 22.3 Parsing XML
    • 22.4 Conclusion
  • Active Model API Reference
    • AttributeMethods
    • Callbacks
    • Conversion
    • Dirty
    • Errors
    • ForbiddenAttributesError
    • Lint::Tests
    • Model
    • Name
    • Naming
    • SecurePassword
    • Serialization
    • Serializers::JSON
    • Serializers::Xml
    • Translation
    • Validations
    • Validator
  • Active Support API Reference
    • Array
    • ActiveSupport::BacktraceCleaner
    • Benchmark
    • ActiveSupport::Benchmarkable
    • BigDecimal
    • ActiveSupport::Cache::Store
    • ActiveSupport::CachingKeyGenerator
    • ActiveSupport::Callbacks
    • Class
    • ActiveSupport::Concern
    • ActiveSupport::Concurrency
    • ActiveSupport::Configurable
    • Date
    • DateTime
    • ActiveSupport::Dependencies
    • ActiveSupport::Deprecation
    • ActiveSupport::DescendantsTracker
    • ActiveSupport::Duration
    • Enumerable
    • ERB::Util
    • FalseClass
    • File
    • Hash
    • ActiveSupport::Gzip
    • ActiveSupport::HashWithIndifferentAccess
    • ActiveSupport::Inflector::Inflections
    • Integer
    • ActiveSupport::JSON
    • Kernel
    • ActiveSupport::KeyGenerator
    • ActiveSupport::Logger
    • ActiveSupport::MessageEncryptor
    • ActiveSupport::MessageVerifier
    • Module
    • ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars
    • NilClass
    • ActiveSupport::Notifications
    • Object
    • ActiveSupport::OrderedHash
    • ActiveSupport::OrderedOptions
    • ActiveSupport::PerThreadRegistry
    • ActiveSupport::ProxyObject
    • ActiveSupport::Railtie
    • Range
    • Regexp
    • ActiveSupport::Rescuable
    • String
    • ActiveSupport::StringInquirer
    • Struct
    • ActiveSupport::Subscriber
    • Symbol
    • ActiveSupport::TaggedLogging
    • ActiveSupport::TestCase
    • ActiveSupport::Testing::Assertions
    • Thread
    • Time
    • ActiveSupport::TimeWithZone
    • ActiveSupport::TimeZone
    • TrueClass
    • ActiveSupport::XmlMini
  • Rails Essentials
    • Environmental Concerns
    • Essential Gems
    • Ruby Toolbox
    • Screencasts

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