Practical Rails Social Networking Sites (Expert's Voice)

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 421 pages
• Published by: Apress June 22, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1590598415
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1590598412
• Book Dimensions: 9 x 7.5 x 1 inches
• Weighs: 1.6 pounds

Product Description


Practical Rails Social Networking Sites shows you the complete development cycle of a social networking community web site. The project develops first as a simple content management system, after which author Alan Bradburne progressively adds features in order to build a full Web 2.0&emdash;enabled community-based social networking site using Ruby on Rails.

You will learn how to make the best use of the Ruby on Rails framework within a large project and how to implement and adapt features specific to a community. The book offers practical advice and tips for developing and testing, along with guidance on how to take your site live, as well as optimize and maintain it.

The book also explores how to integrate with other community sites such as Flickr and Google Maps, and how to make good use of Rails Ajax features. You will also learn how to optimize and adapt your site to work well on mobile browsers.

About The Author
Alan Bradburne is the co-founder of Incrediblinc Ltd (www.incrediblinc.com), a London-based Ruby on Rails development company specializing in developing community sites for both end-users and enterprise clients.



Alan has over ten years experience in the web and mobile development industries, and has worked for Motorola, Nextel and Sun Microsystems. Prior to founding IncrediblInc he created http://phlog.net, the world's first dedicated mobile photo blogging community. He also developed the social networking site http://cudlz.com.



He lives in Berkshire, England with his wife.

Reader Reviews
The is essentially a programming cook book with recipes centered on social networking functionality. That being said - this is not a "getting started on rails" book; you should have some idea of how to use rails (but you dont have to be an expert). Here are some of the recipes: developing a CMS, blog with RSS, blog with web services, a forum, photo gallery (probably would have been better if this one had used Amazon's S3), adding tag functionality, creating a mobile version of your site, XFN, ... Unless you're a broke student debating between this and food, I'd get this book. There are decent examples that are useful to see. It's pretty good considering Amazon's cheap price and considering this is the only book out on Rails related to social networking sites (as of when I wrote this review). Update: I've now read the other Ruby on Rails Social Network Book: RailsSpace. In my opinion I would get both. However if you have to choose one it would depend both on your skill level and taste. Would you rather have more subjects covered with less material, or would you like less subjects being covered more in depth. If you want more subjects covered and you think you can figure out the extra details, then Practical Rails Social Networking Sites is for you.