Beginning Rails 4 is a book exactly for me, but I am not sure how much it is a book for complete beginners. It is a great book, very unique, very tasty and full of valuable knowledge not just about Ruby and Rails, but also about testing, SQL, Ajax, Ruby community, etc.. I can say that it gives you the perfect starting point of everything you could need in Ruby on Rails application. That is a really complete approach, which I miss in other sources.
On the other hand, I do not think someone without a previous knowledge of other programming language or without a bits of Ruby would gain so much from the book. It may seem overwhelming. Also some parts of the book were really hard to grasp, as for example introduction to Ruby - explaining classes and objects. The getter and setter methods which were immediately replaced by attr_accesor just confused me.
The chapter I value the most is the first one - introducing the rails framework. I read a few other books or online tutorials about rails before but I have never seen such a nicely written introduction. I appreciate the explanation of web application in general, frameworks and mainly the part about agility. I think lots of people know what agile programming means, as did I in theory, but it was really valuable to me to read how exactly Ruby on Rails encourages this agility in practice.
I also liked the explanation of Active record and Action pack. For example the scheme 7.1 - The action pact request cycle really put everything what I have read into its places. I thing such kind of visual explanation are very important.
Although I skip some of the parts, like the one about Ajax and CSS ( I hoped I already knew this stuff and I did not want to distract myself away from rails), I really liked how the book is really full of all-around knowledge not just about Rails. You can find really useful overview of SQL in the appendix, for example, which I am sure I will have to read again very soon, since is very condensed for me.
To summarize it, the book was very useful for me, I would recommend it to all beginning programmers who already heard something about Rails, maybe watched few tutorials but need a deeper understanding. It is also a great material to meet related tools which you will have to face as a programmer, and get a basic understanding of it. However, do not pick this book as your very first intro to programming or if you are not motivated enough - it may discourage you as it is not superficial nor easy.
This book will guide you through the paths and corners of the Rails framework in a way you couldn’t even notice that you’ve learned so much. Why Rails? After words of authors it is quite more than a tool – it is a way of thinking. And for those convenient, Rails is usually the path of least resistance. Whole book is written in a spirit of (unnecessary) supporting you to read one more page until it happily ends – and you, full of knowledge you wanted to gain, are full of energy to continue with one more book just like this one.
In first few chapters you will obtain the wider view on how web- based dynamic applications work. You will „hear“ encouraging little stories, scratch the surface of MVC pattern and get done installing of Ruby, Rails and SQLite. Right after that you will jump into the astonishing building of your own blog application.
Following the story line you are able to take much more from the book than you expect. That is a good sign from the authors that they are serious about their work. They will let you get in touch with real problems and – honestly - what way of learning is better than working on your own materpiece with someone always beside you ready to help?
Fourth chapter slows down for a while and you can do sightseeing around the Ruby language. For those who never wrote a line in a Ruby is this one of many ways to understand the simple syntax and the beauty of the language. If you still hesitate about your attitude to Ruby, in this chapter you can find out that there is nothing to be afraid of, only too inviting approach to readers ;).
Next three chapters will cover the very important topics about Active Record, tell you how to interact with databases, make complex relations and validations in your application and make you familiar with already mentioned MVC. The major component of these chapters is to let you understand the connections between parts of your app and get your data exactly where they should be, all in very friendy way and with many helpful hints. By the end of the book you’ll know how to use Rails, how to style your web applications with CSS, you will be familiar with Git, command line and many more services your teachers probably skipped at classes. Beginning Rails 4 is worth reading at least a few times for revise what you learned and feel the experience of learning from wise people.