After the success of, the self-published, Getting Real Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson had to do another book. But this time, instead of treading old ground and doing another book on software development, they've written a book for anyone who owns or works in any business. Rework certainly has a leaning towards those of us who work at a computer, or at least at a desk. I can't honestly see it having all that much relevance for a shepherd... then again you'll read the book from a different perspective, depending upon your occupation.

Rework is a book of essays. Being only about a page, and no more than two, you couldn't really call them chapters. They're simply written, jargon free and each is separated from it's neighbour by artwork penned by Mike Rohde.

If you've worked in an office you'll read the book and either laugh, chuckle or shake your head in complete dismay.

Yes, I've read it all, some sections more than once. It probably isn't a necessary thing to do, but I think that having some knowledge of everything gives you a better understanding of what is possible.

Of course it's been a bit of a struggle. I started working through the example application last December when I bought the book. I quickly found that I just didn't know what the code meant and how the functionality all links together. So, quite rightly, I bought the Programming Ruby book and I worked my way through that. I must just point out that I'm from a procedural programming background and not an object orientated one. That was probably why I found it difficult to get my head around some of the concepts. When I eventually came back to this book I did find it easier to understand how things worked.

Ruby and the Rails framework are just light years ahead of the programming language that I use a work. While reading the book I've often thought how great it would be if we had that kind of functionality in our application.

If you're interested in Rails then this book pretty much has it all. It starts with the development of a simple application, then moves on to describe the framework in more depth, then deals with AJAX, security and deployment. There is even an overview of the Ruby language in a section at the back.

I'll certainly be buying the next edition to see what else has been added to this elegant framework.