Beginning Ruby on Rails E-Commerce - Home

New Ruby and Rails releases from Apress

2007-07-24T17:50:00Z

Apress has just come out with two interesting releases in the Ruby and Rails spectrum. Beginning Ruby on Rails is a truly beginner-level book so if you felt other books were a bit overwhelming, it might be an excellent tome to start with. If you take the word of Hampton for it, the book should be a really excellent intro.

Another interesting new title is Practical Ruby for System Administration. One of the most obvious use cases for Ruby is as an “enterprise glue”, and that’s exactly what André Ben Hamou will teach you in his book.

(via Ruby Inside)

ruby-prof 0.5.0 is out

2007-07-24T17:48:00Z

We briefly mentioned ruby-prof in the performance optimization chapter of the book. At the time there were some compatibility issues between ActionProfiler and ruby-prof, however. Now Charlie Savage has come out with an all-new version of his profiler, ruby-prof 0.5.0. According to Peter Cooper, the new version “is a major leap forward”, which seems to indeed be true.

Reviews pouring in

2007-02-18T15:23:00Z

We’ve got some nice reviews even outside the standard Amazon.com page. Rails superhero Jamis Buck wrote a very positive detailed review, as did Hendy Irawan. Even Java cowboys seem to love the book :-)

Errata

2007-01-20T06:12:00Z

We spent a good part of the holidays working through all the great errata requests we have received, and the list is finally ready for publishing.

Thanks to everybody who have taken the time to point out corrections, we really appreciate it. Keep’em coming!

Christian interviewed and a Rails blogging contest at On Ruby

2007-01-04T18:09:00Z

Pat Eyler over at On Ruby just published an interview with Christian. If you want to get a closer look at Christian’s thoughts about Rails, Ruby, Python, Java and all things related, go have a look. I was the “victim” of a similar interview in November.

On Ruby also sports a blogging contest for all who are interested in learning and teaching Ruby and Rails by writing. I had the honour to come up with the theme for the January 2007 edition and am also sitting in the the grand jury picking up the winners this month. I wrote a longer article about this month’s theme in my weblog.

Discussion Group is alive!

2006-12-12T13:25:00Z

The discussion about the book seems to be very lively on the Rails mailing list. Unfortunately the amount of traffic on the list is huge so it’s really hard to spot the posts related to the book from there. Therefore, I created a new list just for discussion about our book.

The list can be found at groups.google.com/group/railsecommerce and works exactly as the Rails lists do. So go ahead and post your enquiries and questions there.

Call for article proposals

2006-11-16T20:28:00Z

We’re going to write articles on this site about topics that are related to Rails and e-commerce but that didn’t make the cut for the actual book. What would you like to read tutorials about? We’ve already been suggested writing about discount packages (real discounts, not the standard amazon packages where you pay as much as the two would cost separately) and hooking the JS auto-completion with AJAX. Anything else? The floor is yours.

Write your proposals in the comment form or – if you’re shy – directly to me (jarkko@jlaine.net).

2006-11-10T13:36:00Z

CHAPTER 1 Project Setup and Proof of Concept
Introducing the Emporium Project	1
Installing the Software	2
Installing Ruby	4
Installing RubyGems	5
Installing Ruby on Rails	6
Installing MySQL	8
Installing the MySQL Driver	9
Introducing Scrum	10
Creating the Emporium Application	12
Creating the Skeleton Application	12
Creating the Emporium Database	14
Starting Emporium for the First Time	18
How Does Ruby on Rails Work?	20
Implementing the About Emporium User Story	20
Running the Generate Script	21
Modifying the Generated View	22
Creating the Layout	23
Modifying the Generated Controller	27
Summary	28
CHAPTER 2 Author Management
Using Test-Driven Development	29
Testing in Rails	30
Unit Testing	30
Functional Testing	31
Integration Testing	31
Creating the ActiveRecord Model	31
Using ActiveRecord Migrations	32
Running Unit Tests	36
Creating the Controller	37
Implementing the User Stories	39
Adding an Author	39
Listing Authors	48
Viewing an Author	50
Editing an Author	52
Deleting an Author	54
Adjusting the Flash Notifications	55
Summary	57
CHAPTER 3 Book Inventory Management
Getting the Requirements	59
Using Scaffolding	60
Implementing the Publisher Administration Interface	61
Updating the Schema with the Publishers Table	61
Generating Publisher Code with the Scaffolding Script	62
Completing the Add Publisher User Story	64
Completing the View Publisher User Story	66
Completing the Edit Publisher User Story	68
Implementing the Book Administration Interface	69
Updating the Schema with the Books Table	69
Creating the Book Model	73
ActiveRecord Mapping	73
Modifying the Generated Models	77
Cloning the Database	80
Unit Testing Validations	81
Unit Testing the ActiveRecord Mappings	82
Generating Book Administration Code with the Scaffolding Script	88
Integration Testing	90
Completing the Add Book User Story	91
Completing the Upload Book Cover User Story	102
Completing the List Books User Story	104
Completing the View Book User Story	107
Completing the Edit Book User Story	110
Testing the Delete Book User Story	112
Summary	112
CHAPTER 4 Book Catalog Browsing
Getting the Book Catalog Requirements	113
Implementing the Book Catalog Interface	114
Implementing the Browse Books User Story	116
Implementing the View Book Details User Story	120
Implementing the Search Books User Story	125
Implementing the Get Latest Books User Story	133
Creating an RSS Feed	136
Summary	139
CHAPTER 5 Shopping Cart Implementation
Getting the Shopping Cart Requirements	141
Setting Up the Shopping Cart	142
Creating the Controller	142
Adding a Functional Test	142
Creating the Models	143
Modifying the Controller	145
Creating the Views	147
Implementing the User Stories	152
Implementing the Add Items to the Cart User Story	152
Implementing the Remove Items from the Cart User Story	161
Implementing the Clear the Cart User Story	166
Summary	168
CHAPTER 6 Forum Implementation
Getting the Forum Requirements	169
Using the Threaded Forum Plugin	170
Setting Up the Forum	171
Updating the Database Schema	171
Modifying the Model	175
Unit Testing the Model	176
Generating the Controller and View	177
Implementing the User Stories	179
Implementing the Post to Forum User Story	179
Implementing the View Forum User Story	185
Implementing the View Post User Story	190
Implementing the Reply to Post User Story	192
Summary	195
CHAPTER 7 Tagging Support
Getting the Tagging Requirements	197
Using the Tagging RubyGem	198
Setting Up for Tagging	201
Updating the Database Schema	201
Preparing the Models	203
Unit Testing the Model	204
Using the Console to Test the Model	205
Implementing the User Stories	207
Implementing the Assign Tags User Story	207
Implementing the Edit Tags User Story	211
Implementing the List Tags and Show Tag User Stories	215
Implementing the Recommend Books User Story	218
Summary	221
CHAPTER 8 Security
Getting the Authentication Requirements	223
Using the Authentication Plugin	224
Implementing the User Stories	227
Implementing the Log In User Story	227
Implementing the Fail Log In User Story	233
Implementing the Reset Password User Story	238
Protecting Your Application	248
Cross-Site Scripting	248
URL and Form Manipulation	248
SQL Injection	249
Cross-Site Request Forgery	250
Summary	250
CHAPTER 9 Checkout and Order Processing
Getting the Checkout and Order-Processing Requirements	252
Implementing the Check Out User Story	252
Creating the Models	252
Adding Validations to the Model	257
Creating the Controller and Integration Test	259
Creating the View	262
Saving the Order Information	268
Integrating with Payment Gateways	271
Installing the Active Merchant Plugin	271
Integrating with PayPal	272
Integrating with AuthorizeNet	280
Using the Payment Gem	284
Implementing the Administrator User Stories	286
Implementing the View Orders User Story	286
Implementing the View Order User Story	290
Implementing the Close Order User Story	292
Calculating Shipping Costs and Taxes	294
Using the Shipping Gem	294
Calculating Taxes	296
Summary	296
CHAPTER 10 Multiple Language Support
Getting the Localization Requirements	297
Using the Globalize Plugin	298
Localizing with Globalize	300
Setting Up Globalize	303
Implementing the User Stories	304
Implementing the Change Locale User Story	304
Implementing the Translation User Stories	306
Translating the View and the Book Model	313
Translating the View	313
Translating the Model	317
Localizing Dates, Numbers, and Currency	319
Localizing Dates	319
Localizing Numbers and Currencies	320
Adding Unicode (UTF-8) Support	322
Setting Character Encoding in HTML	323
Setting Character Encoding for the HTTP Response	324
Changing the Database to Use UTF-8	324
Summary	326
CHAPTER 11 Acceptance Testing
Using Selenium	327
Writing Selenium Tests	330
Selenium Commands	330
Selenium Test Formats	334
The First Acceptance Test	335
Recording Selenium Tests	337
Using the Selenium IDE	337
Recording the View Forum Acceptance Test	340
Recording the Post to Forum Acceptance Test	345
Recording the Show Post Acceptance Test	347
Recording the Reply to Post Acceptance Test	348
Summary	350
CHAPTER 12 Application Deployment
Setting Up the Production Environment	351
Connecting to the Production Server: SSH	352
Installing the Web Server: LightTPD	353
Installing the Application Server: Ruby on Rails and FastCGI	356
Installing the Database Server (MySQL)	358
Configuring LightTPD	358
Creating the Production Database	365
Deploying the Application Manually	366
Copying the Application	367
Creating Users and Groups	367
Starting LightTPD	368
Starting FastCGI Processes	369
Automating Deployment	371
Installing Capistrano	371
Creating the Capistrano Deployment Recipe	371
Running the Setup Task	375
Deploying to Production	376
Starting LightTPD	379
Summary	380
CHAPTER 13 Performance Optimization
Performance and Scaling	381
Measuring Performance	382
Checking the Log File	382
Using Rails Analyzer	383
Caching	388
Page Caching	388
Action Caching	390
Fragment Caching	390
Fragment Stores	392
Caching ActiveRecord Objects	395
Common Performance Problems in Rails	397
Rendering Speed	397
Database Access	399
Summary	401

Beginning Ruby on Rails E-Commerce is Shipping!

2006-11-08T12:17:00Z

Dear Rails Enthusiast,

We just got email from our editor Keir where he said he’d got his hands on our new book, Beginning Rails E-Commerce. His mail didn’t include the words “f*cking awesome”, but instead “superb” and “a work of art”, which we think are almost as good.

This means that the book will hit the shelves before you can say “Heinemeier”, so be sure to get yours while it’s still hot.

We wanted to make our book such that you can “read” it while you’re sitting in front of your computer. It’s completely project-driven, meaning the content is divided by task, and that you can build the sample application in small iterations, learning the background details on the fly.

As one of the core philosophies of Rails is to support best practices, we decided to do that as well. Most of the tasks are written test-driven, giving you a glimpse of the ease with which TDD can be used in Rails and the power it brings compared to a traditional, ad-hoc web application development process.

We hope you enjoy the book as much as we enjoyed the journey of writing it.

Buy the book

Best,

Christian Hellsten and Jarkko Laine

Sample Code

2006-11-07T09:45:00Z

On this page you can find the sample code for the book.

By Chapter:

All chapters at once (4.8MB)

Download