How to Write a Web Application in Ruby

Learn how web applications are built, piece by piece, from the ground up.

by Tom Stuart

Okay, so you’re a web developer. You already know how to build a web application in Rails. You understand the general structure of web applications and the main pieces involved: the app server, the router, the controller, the model, the view. You get things done.

But how do these pieces work, and how do they fit together to create a working web application? What does all the code in Rails actually do, and how does it do it? What are your options when your framework doesn’t quite work the way you want it to?

How to Write a Web Application in Ruby cuts through the magic and shows you exactly how every part of a web application does its job. An ebook and screencast walk you through the process of building a complete web application from scratch — in bare-bones Ruby, using code from the standard library — and then show you how to use third-party components (including the Rails and Sinatra web frameworks) to offload some of the grunt work without sacrificing your understanding.

How to Write a Web Application in Ruby will be published eventually. To be notified when it’s available, please follow @rubywebapp or enter your email address here:

(I’ll only use this to keep you informed about the project, and won’t share it with anyone.)