Challenges/2005/November/11

1. Mission
2. Background
3. Helpful Links
4. Submissions
5. Extras

Mission

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to build a very basic online bookshelf application with Ruby, Rails and a database (e.g. MySQL). Your application should allow users to:

• Manage books

  • Add a book with typical book metadata (title, author, publisher, isbn, etc.)

  • Display a list/shelf of added books

  • View an existing book

  • Edit an existing book

  • Delete an existing book

• Manage book categories

  • Add a category (e.g. Mysteries, Favorites, To-Read)

  • Remove a category

  • Associate books with categories

  • Browse books by category

Estimated development time: 20 - 120 minutes, depending on experience

Background

There is no background for this week's challenge. It's the first in a 4-part series.

Helpful Links

• Ruby-Lang.org - Download/install/use Ruby

• RubyOnRails.org - Download/install/use Rails

• MySQL.org - Download/install/use a database

• Amazon.com - Get ideas about book metadata

Submissions

If you've completed this week's challenge, create a page for your solution and add a link below. On your page, be sure to include a general description of your approach, some screenshots (attached as JPGs), your code and database scripts (attached in a ZIP file) and acknowledgements of everyone who contributed to that solution.

Extras

Go ahead -- get carried away! If you've already finished the challenge and posted your solution, why not add these features:

• Search by category and any or all book fields

• Pagination of results (for both search and browse)

• Sortable table headers

• Snazzy graphics / css