being on Rails

[MrNase]

Have you ever tried Ruby on Rails and want to share some tips?


I tried to set Ruby up on my Windows machine but with no success..
The Ruby input window which allows you to actually 'program' Ruby is based on the Windows cmd.exe (or command.exe) which in my case doesn't allow the input of { or \ and some other characters.

This means I can't use Ruby at all because you need { and \ very often.


Iam using (well, I was using ) InstantRail, a Windows application which has all features already built in but Iam also open to something else if that's working better.

Share your Ruby experiences, recommend me a good package to start with. Iam more than willing to learn Ruby on Rails but I had everything but and easy start

Ruby on Rails -> http://rubyonrails.org/

[DirectPixel]

I tried RoR back when 37signals and all the hype surrounding them made it seem like the best thing in the world. After setting it up and spending a good day playing around with it, I realized that PHP development is much faster and intuitive.

RoR's claims about easily adding functions and minimizing user coding are nothing but simple object-oriented ideas that have existed for decades. Nothing that PHP and a few classes can't replicate.

[Chroder]

A lot has changed since the release of Rails 1.0, you might want to try it again.

It's true that the same thing could be done in PHP (well, the same thing could be done in Python etc. with work, too). But the Rails framework is a nice piece of work any way you look at it It gives you the base for just about any web app you can imagine, but it lets you override everything so you aren't limited in any way.

Though it should be mentioned that Rails is just a framework, Ruby != Rails. A lot of newcomers seem to think that if you use Ruby, you have to use this Rails framework. The Ruby language itself is also very nice and worth looking at.

If you are comfortable in PHP and think you can create products faster with PHP, then obviously you don't need to venture into another language and another framework. But that doesn't mean Rails isn't fabulous in it's own right It does take getting used to (like how Rails names things, and what it assumes to be true etc), but after you get past all of that, development flies (at least in my experience so far).

Anyway, back to MrNase's questions. For tips, I just started myself so I cannot give you any real advice But if you want to get intro Rails, you should make sure you know the Ruby language first. There is no point in trying to wrap you head around a framework when you don't know how the language works. And then, find a good tutorial that will take you step by step through a demo project. I couldn't find many Rails tutorials, so I bought the book by Pragmatic Programmer.

As for working with Ruby, use your favorite text editor to create a .rb file. With the package you downloaded, it should associate .rb files with Ruby in Explorer and you should be able to double-click to run them. Though if you want to test your work with Rails, you'll need to start up WEBrick, the Rails mini-server, and access your scripts via localhost. It should describe how to do this in one of the basic tutorials they have laying around the site.