Learn Enough Action Cable to Be Dangerous
Sep 8, 2016 • posted by Michael Hartl
One of the most exciting additions to the newly released Rails 5 is Action Cable, which enables the creation of responsive, real-time web applications with Rails. For example, with Action Cable it’s possible to make a live chat app that updates every user’s chat window instantly, rather than waiting for a slow polling process in the background.
The secret to this amazing new capability is the WebSockets Protocol, which supports real-time, persistent connections between client and server (unlike standard HTTP). With Action Cable, using WebSockets is a breeze, and we get all the power and flexibility of Rails for free.
Today I’m releasing a draft of Learn Enough Action Cable to Be Dangerous, a new tutorial covering real-time web apps with Rails. It’s available for free online, and is available for purchase in the standard ebook formats.
Learn Enough Action Cable to Be Dangerous is an especially good follow-on to the Ruby on Rails Tutorial, because it puts your Rails knowledge to work on one of the most cutting-edge web technologies out there.
I’m calling this release a draft because Action Cable is so new, and it’s entirely possible I may want to update it based on reader feedback. (Typo and bug reports are especially appreciated.) Any such updates will be available for free (including to ebook purchasers).
Progress tracking and community exercise answers will be available to all members of the Learn Enough Society. Exercise answers (currently in preparation) will also be available to all ebook purchasers.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to give a quick update on some of the products in the Learn Enough introductory sequence. I’m hoping to release the next title, Learn Enough HTML to Be Dangerous, within a couple of weeks, with the other titles to follow as quickly as we can make them.
I’m especially excited for Learn Enough CSS & Layout to Be Dangerous, which is being prepared in collaboration with Learn Enough designer Lee Donahoe. It’s going to be great!