Ruby on Rails is the revolutionary online programming tool that makes creating functional e-commerce web sites faster and easier than ever. With the intuitive, straightforward nature of Ruby and the development platform provided by Rails, you can put together full-fledged web applications quickly, even if you're new to web programming. You will find a thorough introduction to both Ruby and Rails in this book. You'll get the easy instructions for acquiring and installing both; understand the nature of conditionals, loops, methods, and blocks; and become familiar with Ruby's classes and objects. You'll learn to build Rails applications, connect to databases, perform necessary testing, and put the whole thing together to create real-world applications such as shopping carts and online catalogs--apps you can actually use right away. What you will learn from this book How to install and use Ruby and Rails Object-oriented programming with Ruby Rails fundamentals and how to create basic online applications How to work with HTML controls, use models in Rails applications, and work with sessions Details on working with databases and creating, editing, and deleting database records Methods for handling cookies and filters and for caching pages How to connect Rails with Ajax Who this book is for This book is for anyone who wants to develop online applications using Ruby and Rails. A basic understanding of programming is helpful; some knowledge of HTML is necessary. Wrox Beginning guides are crafted to make learning programming languages and technologies easier than you think, providing a structured, tutorial format that will guide you through all the techniques involved.