

Shameless self promotion - edwardbenson

Hey YC crowd,<p>I regularly troll YC news because I've got the entrepreneurial itch that so many share here. I've finally got something to stand up on a stump about, so I thought I'd write a post for once:<p>I just spent the past year working on a book called The Art of Rails [1] about web application design, coding style, and life cycle in Ruby on Rails. It is aimed for the intermediate Rails developer, but it is really useful for anyone interested in learning about modern thoughts in web application design and picking up a bit of Ruby along the way. The book really tries to appreciate the aesthetic of Ruby, Rails, and the development practices that have come to characterize modern web development.<p>That's all I have to say; I'll let the book say the rest!<p>[1] http://www.amazon.com/Art-Rails-Edward-Benson/dp/0470189487?ie=UTF8&#38;s=books&#38;qid=1209652925&#38;sr=8-1<p>(Edited to fix link)
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ambition
I took a glance at the table of contents, but more efficient to ask you
directly: What does this book add or teach that isn't out there already?

I hope that doesn't come across as snarky, I don't mean it to be.

~~~
edwardbenson
@ambition - not a snarky question at all. The Rails book market is certainly
growing crowded, so I think it is a very valid question. I hope this isn't a
cheesy thing to say, but I really tried to make this the book I wish that I
had to guide me after I had been experimenting with Rails for a while.

This book is different for a few important reasons:

First off, it speaks to issues of design rather than issues of API. That has
important ramifications in the way the material is covered. Agile Web
Development with Rails (Pragmatic) and The Rails Way (Addison) are two
fantastic books, and both are on the shelf next to my desk right now, but they
both concentrate on exhaustive coverage of the Rails API. The Art of Rails is
meant to be the kind of book you buy after owning one of those. It takes
someone familiar with the /syntax/ of coding Rails and attempts to provide
guidance and insight into the /style/ and design patterns of architecting an
entire application with Rails.

Second, it devotes three whole chapters (8, 9, and 10) to developing with the
"Ruby style". So many web developers learn Ruby because of Rails that they
eventually get to a point in their Rails development skills where they stand
to really benefit by taking a few steps outside of Rails to learn how Ruby is
a fundamentally different language than {PHP, Java, other OO/Procedural
languages}. The Art of Rails really devotes a significant effort to talking
about the new and Ruby-centric design patterns that constructs like blocks,
Procs, method_missing, and instance_eval make possible, and then it provides
examples of how you can use these design patterns in your Rails applications.

Third, it backs up design patterns with useful, concise examples that you can
actually execute, but otherwise stays clear from drowning you with example
code that is better left to online format.

Finally, I wrote it to read cover-to-cover, or at least a chapter at a time,
whereas a lot of tech books these days are really centered around dictionary-
style reference lookup. This book should be fun to read, have you nodding your
head, and leave you with some useful abstractions, coding techniques, and new
tricks when you're done.

I'll stop here to prevent myself from leaving a run-on comment, but thanks for
pushing back for more justification of the book

~~~
abstractbill
"@edwardbenson"

Hope you don't think _this_ is too snarky, but there's really no need for the
at-signs on a site that has threaded comments ;-)

~~~
edwardbenson
what can I say -- old habits die hard :)

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utnick
cool! congrats on the book

would you mind writing about how you came about getting a book deal?

were you active in the rails community? Did wrox approach you? did you write
the book then approach publishers? etc etc

congrats again

~~~
edwardbenson
@utnick -

Thanks! As to your questions: \- I've been a lurker in the Rails community
ever since it was first released. So no, not active. I guess in that sense I'm
doing things backwards. I hope to be active now that I'm not spending all my
free time writing and am polishing up an acts_as_rdf plugin for ActiveRecord
that I hope will help the semantic web-minded folks.

\- I had co-authored another book for Wrox before, so had been emailing back
and forth with them afterwards about how important Rails was. That email
thread turned into a book proposal.

I can only speak for my own book writing experience with Wiley/Wrox, but it is
likely similar across the tech industry. You don't have to write the book up
front or get an agent. Instead you submit a proposal to the publisher that is
essentially your pitch: it includes a potential table of contents, your own
market analysis, and why you think the book is a necessary addition to the
existing set of published knowledge.

If all goes well, the proposal turns into a contract, which is basically a 15
page way of saying that you split the copyright, get a royalty advance, and
get X% of sales, where X seems to be around 10% for the big publishers.
(Pragmatic gives 50%!!).

Then you start the writing process, which took about a year both times for me,
divided into ~8 months of writing, ~2 months of editing, and ~1.5 month of
last-minute bug fixing and waiting for the book to print.

All in all, it's been simultaneously the hardest and most rewarding thing I've
done in my (admittedly short) professional life. If you're interested in more
details about how to get your foot in the door, feel free to shoot me an email
(edward [dot] benson [at] gmail [dot] com).

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petercooper
I know I'll probably be reviewing this book for Ruby Inside anyway, but.. tip
for the future: Use better headlines for posts on HN ;-)

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redorb
I think 'shameless' would've included nothing about "promotion".. you have a
little shame (and thats a good thing)

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allenbrunson
this might be a good post to ask my related question.

i'm teaching myself ruby on rails. i'm learning ruby by reimplementing some of
my c++ classes, and i'm learning rails by ... erm, haven't figured that one
out yet.

does anybody know of a project that i could apply myself to? i'm no good at
doing tutorials, they bore me to tears. i learn by having a goal to
accomplish. but i don't have any really strong ideas about sites i'd like to
implement. so i'm willing to work on somebody else's site, for free, just for
the experience. who knows what projects would have me?

i just quit my job, i have a lot of money saved up, and i am serious as a
heart attack about putting a lot of time and effort into this.

~~~
davidw
I have a couple of open source Rails projects:

<http://rubyforge.org/projects/dedawiki/>

<http://rubyforge.org/projects/stufftodo/>

Or if you want to work on pay sites, email me and we'll see what we can work
out.

~~~
allenbrunson
stufftodo looks interesting. i've got some personal stuff to attend to today,
i'll try to get into it tomorrow.

thanks for the links.

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Anon84
So... Where's the pdf link?

~~~
edwardbenson
Heh - I wish. As far as I know, Wiley (the publisher) doesn't have any plans
to do an electronic version.

If it is e-books you're looking for, you should really check out Geoffrey
Grosenbach's Peep Code (peepcode.com). It has a collection of screen casts and
PDF books that are really great, and cost $9 bucks each, which is far worth
the information they contain.

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simianstyle
you handsome ruby-hacking devil you

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sabat
You should have added something about Rails to the subject line; would draw
more attention. Nothing wrong with promoting this, and as an intermediate
Rails programmer, this may be a book I can use. I'll take a look.

