I just purchased it ... PDF only ... and I'm impressed. I have a question though. Where is the Rails schedule in relation to the publishing schedule for the book? Rails is at 1.1.2 right now, by the time the paper book is ready/beta period ends, where will Rails be? 1.2? 1.9.6?? 2.0? Dave Thomas wrote: > ANNOUNCING AGILE WEB DEVELOPMENT WITH RAILS, SECOND EDITION > =========================================================== > > http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/rails/ > > > Rails has changed a lot since we announced the first edition of the > book a year ago. DHH says that the 1.1 release "boasts more than 500 > fixes, tweaks, and features from more than 100 contributors." Who > are we to disagree? > > To celebrate the release of Rails 1.1, we're delighted to announce > the second edition of Agile Web Development with Rails. This is a > major update to the original, and we're releasing it as a beta book. > > So far, we've rewritten the Depot application chapters. They now > illustrate new Rails features such as RJS templates for Ajax support > and "has_many :through". We've lost the SQL in favor of migrations, > and even include an rxml example, so we can show off RESTful > interfaces and "respond_to." It uses the new rake tasks, keeps its > sessions in the database, and generally tries to follow all the > latest Rails programming recommendations (including dropping things > that are likely to become deprecated over time). The testing chapter > supports transactional fixtures, shows new features, and illustrates > the new integration testing framework. > > Over the coming months, we'll be updating the rest of the book. The > Rails core chapters will be revamped to show all the changes to > ActiveRecord, ActionController, and ActionView. The Web2.0 chapter > will be rewritten to illustrate RJS; and the deployment chapter > rewritten to use Capistrano and to show how to set Rails up in > production. All in all, the book will be significantly updated to > illustrate all we've learned about writing Rails applications in the > last year. > > All this represents a bunch of totally new content---entirely new > chapters and largely rewritten old ones. > > Today, we're releasing this new edition as a beta book. As with all > our beta books, you'll be able to download updates as we add new > content, and then, after we complete the book, continue to download > changes to this second edition. We anticipate that the book will be > finished in the fall, at which point the paper copies will ship. > > However, we're doing this beta book slightly differently to our > other ones. Rather than releasing just the new content as it becomes > available, we're instead releasing a hybrid that mixes the new > content with that of the original, first edition. That way you'll be > able to use the beta book as a complete reference that gets updated > over time. Each chapter is color coded: ones with a gray header are > from the first edition, while those from the second have a red > header. > > From May 2nd onwards, if you buy the AWDwR PDF, you'll be getting > the beta book version. If you want the paper book, you'll have the > choice of buying the first edition now or buying the second edition > that will ship when it's ready. > > If you bought a first edition PDF from us on or after April 1st, > 2006 (order numbers 27140 and above), you qualify for a free upgrade > to the beta book. We'll be sending you instructions by email over > the next few days. (If you have a spam blocker, we suggest > whitelisting pragprog.com and pragmaticprogrammer.com--you'd be > amazed how often our PDF download e-mails get bounced.) > > Visit the book's page at http://pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/rails > to see samples from the new chapters and check out the changes for > yourself. Be sure to visit the "in-place upgrade" link to see how the > process works. > > We're really excited to be able to offer the most up-to-date > information on the amazing Rails framework. If you're a Rails > developer, we think you'll find this book an invaluable companion. > > > Regards > > > > Dave Thomas > > > -- M. Edward (Ed) Borasky http://linuxcapacityplanning.com