Pro Active Record helps you take advantage of the full power of your database engine from within your Ruby programs and Rails applications. ActiveRecord, part of the magic that makes the Rails framework so powerful and easy to use, is the model element of the Rails Model-View-Controller framework. It's an object-relational mapping library enabling you to interact with databases from both Ruby and Rails applications.
Because ActiveRecord is configured with default assumptions that mesh perfectly with the Rails framework, Rails developers often find they hardly need think about it at all. However, if you are developing in Ruby without Rails, or are deploying against legacy databases designed without Rails in mind, or you just want to take advantage of database-specific features such as large objects and stored procedures, you need the in-depth knowledge of ActiveRecord found in this book.
In Pro Active Record, authors Kevin Marshall, Chad Pytel, and Jon Yurek walk you through every step from the basics of getting and installing the ActiveRecord library to working with legacy schema to using features specific to each of todays most popular database engines, including Oracle, MS SQL, MySQL, and more! You’ll come to a deep understanding of ActiveRecord that will enable you to truly exploit all that Ruby, Rails, and your chosen database platform have to offer.
Anonymous
Posted Mon Nov 12 00:00:00 EST 2007
The book lists it's intended 'User level' at 'Intermediate-Advanced'. I've been using Rails and ActiveRecord for about 2 years, so I should fit into the target audience. After reading the book I still think it will be a great reference book to have within arm's reach while working with ActiveRecord. To me it will serve as an API to AR. So it will be practical in that sense. On the other hand, while reading it I never experienced any 'aha!' moments where I felt like I learned something new or exciting, which I had hoped for from a 'Pro' book. If you are a beginner 'never having used AR' it will definitely save you time 'and eye strain' hunting down tutorials on blogs. It's a good Active Record reference & usage tutorial's'. I would have appreciated this book even more when I was first starting to use the Ruby on Rails framework. So if you are a beginner, don't let the 'Intermediate - Advanced' user level scare you off. If you are using Rails, even as a beginner, you will probably be using Active Record too. In fact I think this book would probably be better named 'Beginning Active Record' instead of 'Pro Active Record'. I give the book 4 stars, with the assumption that you go into it with the expectation of 'Beginning Active Record'.
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Posted Sun Aug 22 00:00:00 EDT 2010
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Overview
Pro Active Record helps you take advantage of the full power of your database engine from within your Ruby programs and Rails applications. ActiveRecord, part of the magic that makes the Rails framework so powerful and easy to use, is the model element of the Rails Model-View-Controller framework. It's an object-relational mapping library enabling you to interact with databases from both Ruby and Rails applications.
Because ActiveRecord is configured with default assumptions ...