why use rails by dr nic
DESCRIPTION
Ruby on Rails is a leading web development framework, yet is only a few years old. Here's why...TRANSCRIPT
They Laughed When I Learned Ruby on Rails But When I Started to Build Web Applications...
Dr Nic Williams
• 10 000 users
• 3 months
• Re-used their global authentication system
• 600 users of 1500 RailsConf attendees
• First release in 5 days
Websites are just text
Google homepage<html> <head> <title>Google</title> </head> <body> <img src="/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif"> <form action="/search" name=f> <input name=q title="Google Search"> <input name=btnG type=submit value="Google Search"> <input name=btnI type=submit value="I'm Feeling Lucky"> </form> </body></html>
Browsers don’t carewhat server you use
Browsers don’t carewhat operating system
Browsers don’t carewhat programming
language
Browsers don’t care.They just want text
Pick what you like best
Developer Real-world problem
Developers are humans
Happy developersdo more good things
Why Rails?
Conventionover
Configuration
class Book < ActiveRecord::Base validates_presence_of :title has_many :orders belongs_to :author, :class_name => "User"end
class StoreController < ApplicationController def show @book = Book.find_by_permalink(params[:id]) endend
http://mysite.com/store/drnic-book-on-rails
DRY
Don’t Repeat Yourself
class Book < ActiveRecord::Baseend
Where are the attributes?Where is the configuration?
Change is instant
Use it, break it, fix it, trash it, change it
Why is Rails special?
Ruby(no more Java)
Introspection Open classes Execute code in class definitions
#9 popular languagehttp://www.tiobe.com/index.htm?tiobe_index
ActiveRecordController
HTML helpersAjax
One languagefor everything
Open Source.
http://dev.rubyonrails.org
• 2200 participants
• commiters, patchers, commenters, +1ers
Every application looks the
same
app
models
controllers
views
config
db
test
vendor
Flexibility is overrated
Constraints are liberating
All this creates happiness, plus better applications
Downsides?
Bad architecture is still bad architecture
Its just for websites
Java is evolvingGroovy and Grails, + Open sourced Java
Getting started
• www.rubyonrails.org
• www.peepcode.com - $9 videos
• www.drnicacademy.com - Australian training