The Web is slowly but surely changing from a model in which a human reader browses content on web pages to a model in which services and clients (not necessarily humans) exchange information. And because of this, author Silvia Puglisi explains, it makes more sense to build platforms instead of just products or applications. Platforms are like ecosystems interconnecting different applications, services, users, developers, and partners, and offer many benefits. In this book, you'll learn how to design and develop Representational State Transfer (REST) platforms in Rails. You'll begin with an introduction to Ruby on Rails, and then move quickly through new concepts. At the end of each chapter, you'll have learned something new about building and organically extending a multi-service platform spanning different devices—and will have had some fun in the process. By the end of the book you'll know how to build an architecture composed of different services accessing shared resources through a set of collaborating APIs and applications. Explore the basics of REST and HTTP, including REST architecture and the role of hypermedia Get to know Rails and Ruby on Rails Learn about API development and create an API Take a thorough look at REST, including Asynchronous REST and testing RESTful services Work with data streams as you map them onto an application UI and integrate external APIs in your application Learn about device-independent development Use data analytics to recognize important events, develop key metrics, and track them Explore various tools you can use to build your own data analytic platform Learn how to scale a Rails application successfully Examine privacy and security issues and the implications of handling and collecting user data

"Every developer working with the Web needs to read this book." -- David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of the Rails framework "RESTful Web Services finally provides a practical roadmap for constructing services that embrace the Web, instead of trying to route around it." -- Adam Trachtenberg, PHP author and EBay Web Services Evangelist You've built web sites that can be used by humans. But can you also build web sites that are usable by machines? That's where the future lies, and that's what RESTful Web Services shows you how to do. The World Wide Web is the most popular distributed application in history, and Web services and mashups have turned it into a powerful distributed computing platform. But today's web service technologies have lost sight of the simplicity that made the Web successful. They don't work like the Web, and they're missing out on its advantages. This book puts the "Web" back into web services. It shows how you can connect to the programmable web with the technologies you already use every day. The key is REST, the architectural style that drives the Web. This book: Emphasizes the power of basic Web technologies -- the HTTP application protocol, the URI naming standard, and the XML markup language Introduces the Resource-Oriented Architecture (ROA), a common-sense set of rules for designing RESTful web services Shows how a RESTful design is simpler, more versatile, and more scalable than a design based on Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) Includes real-world examples of RESTful web services, like Amazon's Simple Storage Service and the Atom Publishing Protocol Discusses web service clients for popular programming languages Shows how to implement RESTful services in three popular frameworks -- Ruby on Rails, Restlet (for Java), and Django (for Python) Focuses on practical issues: how to design and implement RESTful web services and clients This is the first book that applies the REST design philosophy to real web services. It sets down the best practices you need to make your design a success, and the techniques you need to turn your design into working code. You can harness the power of the Web for programmable applications: you just have to work with the Web instead of against it. This book shows you how.

Summary Rails 4 in Action is a comprehensive introduction to Rails that guides you hands-on through all you'll need to become a competent and confident Rails developer. In it, you'll master Rails 4 by developing a ticket-tracking application that includes RESTful routing, authentication and authorization, file uploads, email, and more. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the Book Rails is a full-stack, open source web framework powered by Ruby. Now in version 4, Rails is mature and powerful, and to use it effectively you need more than a few Google searches. You'll find no substitute for the guru's-eye-view of design, testing, deployment, and other real-world concerns that this book provides. Rails 4 in Action is a hands-on guide to the subject. In this fully revised new edition, you'll master Rails 4 by developing a ticket-tracking application that includes RESTful routing, authentication and authorization, file uploads, email, and more. Learn to design your own APIs and successfully deploy a production-quality application. You'll see test-driven development and behavior-driven development in action throughout the book, just like in a top Rails shop. What's Inside Creating your own APIs Using RSpec and Capybara Emphasis on test-first development Fully updated for Rails 4 About the Reader For readers of this book, a background in Ruby is helpful but not required. No Rails experience is assumed. About the Authors Ryan Bigg, Yehuda Katz, Steve Klabnik, and Rebecca Skinner are contributors to Rails and active members of the Rails community. Table of Contents Ruby on Rails, the framework Testing saves your bacon Developing a real Rails application Oh, CRUD! Nested resources Authentication Basic access control Fine-grained access control File uploading Tracking state Tagging Sending email Deployment Designing an API Rack-based applications

The expert guide to building Ruby on Rails applications Ruby on Rails strips complexity from the development process, enabling professional developers to focus on what matters most: delivering business value. Now, for the first time, there’s a comprehensive, authoritative guide to building production-quality software with Rails. Pioneering Rails developer Obie Fernandez and a team of experts illuminate the entire Rails API, along with the Ruby idioms, design approaches, libraries, and plug-ins that make Rails so valuable. Drawing on their unsurpassed experience, they address the real challenges development teams face, showing how to use Rails’ tools and best practices to maximize productivity and build polished applications users will enjoy. Using detailed code examples, Obie systematically covers Rails’ key capabilities and subsystems. He presents advanced programming techniques, introduces open source libraries that facilitate easy Rails adoption, and offers important insights into testing and production deployment. Dive deep into the Rails codebase together, discovering why Rails behaves as it does— and how to make it behave the way you want it to. This book will help you Increase your productivity as a web developer Realize the overall joy of programming with Ruby on Rails Learn what’s new in Rails 2.0 Drive design and protect long-term maintainability with TestUnit and RSpec Understand and manage complex program flow in Rails controllers Leverage Rails’ support for designing REST-compliant APIs Master sophisticated Rails routing concepts and techniques Examine and troubleshoot Rails routing Make the most of ActiveRecord object-relational mapping Utilize Ajax within your Rails applications Incorporate logins and authentication into your application Extend Rails with the best third-party plug-ins and write your own Integrate email services into your applications with ActionMailer Choose the right Rails production configurations Streamline deployment with Capistrano

If you’re a web developer or designer ready to learn Ruby on Rails, this hands-on guide is the ideal way to get started. Rather than toss you into the middle of the framework’s Model-View-Controller architecture, as many books do, Learning Rails 5 begins with the foundations of the Web you already know. You’ll learn how to create something visible with Rails’ view layer before diving into the more difficult inner layers: the database models and controller code. All you need to begin your Rails journey is HTML experience. Each chapter includes exercises and review questions to test your understanding as you go. Present content by building an application with a basic view and a simple controller Build forms and process their results, progressing from simple to more complex Use Rails scaffolding and REST to build effective applications quickly Connect forms to models and create code that maps directly to database structures Build applications that combine data from multiple tables Use migrations to track changes to your database over time Add common elements such as sessions, cookies, and authentication

“Ruby on Rails™ Tutorial by Michael Hartl has become a must-read for developers learning how to build Rails apps.” —Peter Cooper, Editor of Ruby Inside Using Rails, developers can build web applications of exceptional elegance and power. Although its remarkable capabilities have made Ruby on Rails one of the world’s most popular web development frameworks, it can be challenging to learn and use. Ruby on Rails™ Tutorial, Second Edition, is the solution. Best-selling author and leading Rails developer Michael Hartl teaches Rails by guiding you through the development of your own complete sample application using the latest techniques in Rails web development. The updates to this edition include all-new site design using Twitter’s Bootstrap; coverage of the new asset pipeline, including Sprockets and Sass; behavior-driven development (BDD) with Capybara and RSpec; better automated testing with Guard and Spork; roll your own authentication with has_secure_password; and an introduction to Gherkin and Cucumber. You’ll find integrated tutorials not only for Rails, but also for the essential Ruby, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and SQL skills you’ll need when developing web applications. Hartl explains how each new technique solves a real-world problem, and he demonstrates this with bite-sized code that’s simple enough to understand, yet novel enough to be useful. Whatever your previous web development experience, this book will guide you to true Rails mastery. This book will help you Install and set up your Rails development environment Go beyond generated code to truly understand how to build Rails applications from scratch Learn test-driven development (TDD) with RSpec Effectively use the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern Structure applications using the REST architecture Build static pages and transform them into dynamic ones Master the Ruby programming skills all Rails developers need Define high-quality site layouts and data models Implement registration and authentication systems, including validation and secure passwords Update, display, and delete users Add social features and microblogging, including an introduction to Ajax Record version changes with Git and share code at GitHub Simplify application deployment with Heroku