You? Will learn how all the components of Rails fit together and how you can leverage them to create sophisticated web applications with less code and more joy. This book is perfect for those who have little or no web applications development, or who have some experience but new to Rails. Beginning Rails assumes basic familiarity with web terms and technologies, but does not require you to become an expert. Topics include: A gentle introduction to a programming language Ruby and Rails Installing Ruby on Mac systems, Linux, or Windows philosophy behind Rails and why it is important Architecture Model-View-Controller Basics and SQL relational databases and create MySQL databases Setting up the scheme with the migration experiment with the application You live in the Rails console Creating rich relationships between your models Using controllers and templates properly Leveraging helpers to keep your templates clean and logic free Adding Ajax and visual effects to enrich your user interface JavaScript with Prototype and script. aculo.us How to send and receive email from your application using and creating your own plug-ins Ensuring your code against Murphy's Law? through written tests Using Capistrano to deploy your application Instead of investigating the mysterious details of Rails, the focus is on those aspects of the framework which will be choose you, shovels, and axes.