Throughout this book we built a blog application, which served as the basis for revealing the magic behind the web development framework Ruby on Rails. We first built this app without any Rails conventions to focus on the core fundamental web development tasks and completely bypassed the Rails magic. By building features from scratch, we were forced to understand the problems that these conventions solve.
From there, we slowly added in Rails conventions. By utilizing Rails conventions and libraries, we were able to streamline development and build out features faster. By showing what problems these conventions address, we were able to see their power and experience their utility.
This book is here to show what happens behind the scenes when using Ruby on Rails. It's one thing to use a technology, and it is another thing to understand it. So many people stop at being content with merely using Rails to sling together simple CRUD applications. But having a deeper understanding will help when you have to customize and configure Rails, and when you have to utilize it to ends outside of a textbook example. We certainly didn't show everything there is to know about Ruby on Rails, but our hope is that we have given you enough of a start to begin an earnest journey into truly understanding this powerful framework.