Ruby on Rails

1
Ruby on Rails

• A Brief Glimpse

Presented by Gregg Pollack
www.PatchedSoftware.com
2
The Disclaimer
I am not an Expert
I am a bad programmer
3
Ruby on Rails?

• Ruby A Programming Language
• Created in 1993 by Yukihiro Matz Matsumoto

Java
PHP
Perl
C

• Ruby On Rails A Web Framework
• Created in 2004 by David Heinemeier Hansson

PRADO
PEAR
Struts
ASP.NET
WebObjects
NWAF
Mason
Catalyst
Hibernate
Mavrick.NET
Cocoon
Tapestry
Catalyst
Ozone
Fusebox
Atlas
Spring Framework
MonoRail
PageKit
Maypole
4
The Ruby Language

• Take a true object-oriented language, such as
  Smalltalk. Drop the unfamiliar syntax and move to
  more conventional, file-based source code. Now
  add in a good measure of the flexibility and
  convenience of languages such as Python and Perl.
• -Dave Thomas
• You end up with Ruby. Programming Ruby

Simple

• Principle of Least Surprise (POLS)
• Everything is an Object

Transparent

• Simplistic straightforward syntax

5
Everything you could want

• Exception handling like Java
• Inheritance
• Blocks
• Garbage Collection
• No Variable Declarations
• OS Independent Threading
• Highly portable

6
Coderspeak

• Ruby allows you to express your ideas through a
  computer
• Why the lucky stiff

3.Times print Ho! exit unless
restaurant.include? aura 'toast', 'cheese',
'wine'.each food print food.capitalize
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Ruby Gems

• Problem
• You have to keep detailed driver version records

Ruby Gems

• Solution
• Package Version Dependency Management
• Package Delivery
• Package Documentation Management
• gem install rails include dependencies

8
Ruby On Rails Concepts

• Convention Over Configuration

NO XML!

• DRY Dont repeat yourself

• Less Software

9
Rails Features

• Automated DB Model Mapping
• Web Services
• Generators
• AJAX Support
• Full Stack MVC Framework

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What is MVC?

• Model Business logic
• Manages interaction

View Display logic
Controller User Action logic
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An MVC Example

• Request I want to edit Blog Post 3

http//www.My.com/Blog/Edit?id3

• Web server receives request and calls the
  appropriate Controller

- Controller called Blog
2. The Controller figures out what code should
run
- Function called Edit
- Function Action called Edit
3. The Action retrieves data from the Model
- Model named Post id 3
4. The Action sends the data to the appropriate
View
5. The View combines the data with html
6. The webpage is sent back to your browser
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The Anatomy of Rails
http//www.My.com/Blog/Edit/3
http//www.My.com/Blog/Edit?id3
Name of the Controller Class
Name of the Action
blog_controller.rb
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Time to Hack!
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Web Servers Databases

• Ruby on Rails Servers

• Any CGI Server

• Fast CGI

• Apache

• Lighttpd (lighty)

• Databases

• Mysql
• PostgresSQL
• SQLite
• SQL Server
• DB2
• Oracle

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Why ruby on rails growing so fast?

• Increases Productivity

• High signal to noise ratio

• Encourages Good Habits

• Zero ramp up time

• Ruby

• Its FUN!

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Ruby on Rails Resources
Ruby on Rails is astounding. Using it is like
watching a kung-fu movie,where a dozen bad-ass
frameworks prepare to beat up the little
newcomeronly to be handed their asses in a
variety of imaginative ways. -Nathan
Torkington, O'Reilly Program Chair for OSCON

• For Videos www.RubyOnRails.com/screencasts
• To Learn www.RubyOnRails.com/docs
• To Talk
• Orlando Ruby Users Group
• www.ORUG.org
• Oh! Rug!