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comp.lang.ruby

Start from the start - Ruby or ruby on rails

eain.jones

2/7/2006 5:53:00 PM

I'm looking to start developing a simple task management application
with a web interface.Three views - User/Admin/Status. No database yet
as i think that would be overkill. I intend to store the data in xml
files for the moment.

My question - i am pretty new to development. I have been working as a
qa engineer for some time and have good unix skills but have only ever
really played with java/perl with no great success. Have had enough of
wishing for applications or features. I'm going to write my own.

I would appreciate any pointers the group could offer. For starters i
am unsure if i should develop in vanilla ruby or implement ruby on
rails if it is to be a web application. My initial thoughts are that
learning ruby will be enough for a start but that i may have to use
some MVC model??

I have hosting with dreamhost which supports ruby.

I am currently expanding the spec and a simple UI which i can post
when complete if people think that would be useful. Its based loosely
on basecamphq but more aligned to the organisation i work for and i
would hope to make it very portable.

Many thanks for your time,
Eain
21 Answers

Daniel Nugent

2/7/2006 6:26:00 PM

0

I'd say your best bet would be to start with a couple of Ruby
tutorials to get a hang of the idioms (blocks being one of the most
important ones) that make Ruby easy to use and maybe try writing a few
small programs in Ruby (preferablly ones that you'd actually use) and
then jump into Rails.

Even as a beginner you shouldn't have too much trouble using Rails,
but you definitley benefit from understanding where and how its power
and flexibility come from.

Chris Pine's tutorial is supposed to be very good even for people
who've never programmed before (I haven't read it personally):
http://pine.fm/Learn...

I personally learned Ruby from the Pickaxe v2, which I found to be the
best book on a programming language that I've ever read (version 1 is
available online: http://ruby-doc.org/docs/Progra...

If you're up for something a bit more difficult, strange, and
wonderful, you should give _why's poignant guide a try (it's got
cartoon foxes!): http://ruby-doc.org/docs/Progra...

As for Rails, I personally couldn't get much out of most of the online
documents on it. I got the Agile Web Development book and that
cleared up a lot for me. In any case here's a list of Rails tutorials
and documentation, youre mileage may vary:
http://www.rubyonrail...

On 2/7/06, eain.jones@gmail.com <eain.jones@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm looking to start developing a simple task management application
> with a web interface.Three views - User/Admin/Status. No database yet
> as i think that would be overkill. I intend to store the data in xml
> files for the moment.
>
> My question - i am pretty new to development. I have been working as a
> qa engineer for some time and have good unix skills but have only ever
> really played with java/perl with no great success. Have had enough of
> wishing for applications or features. I'm going to write my own.
>
> I would appreciate any pointers the group could offer. For starters i
> am unsure if i should develop in vanilla ruby or implement ruby on
> rails if it is to be a web application. My initial thoughts are that
> learning ruby will be enough for a start but that i may have to use
> some MVC model??
>
> I have hosting with dreamhost which supports ruby.
>
> I am currently expanding the spec and a simple UI which i can post
> when complete if people think that would be useful. Its based loosely
> on basecamphq but more aligned to the organisation i work for and i
> would hope to make it very portable.
>
> Many thanks for your time,
> Eain
>
>
>


--
-Dan Nugent

Stefan Lang

2/7/2006 6:37:00 PM

0

I think you meant this one:
http://www.poignantguide...

Use Rails, and not vanilla Ruby. It will save you a lot of time.

Please do yourself a favor, and use a database, and no XML files.
Databases are where Rails shines, it will be much easier than a XML files.

If you are willing to buy a book, I recommend "Programming Ruby - The
Pragmatic Programmer's Guide v2"

but you can also use (the slightly outdated) v1: http://
www.rubycentral.com/book/

For a book on Rails:
"Agile Web Development with Rails"

On Wednesday, February 08, 2006, at 3:26 AM, Daniel Nugent wrote:
>I'd say your best bet would be to start with a couple of Ruby
>tutorials to get a hang of the idioms (blocks being one of the most
>important ones) that make Ruby easy to use and maybe try writing a few
>small programs in Ruby (preferablly ones that you'd actually use) and
>then jump into Rails.
>
>Even as a beginner you shouldn't have too much trouble using Rails,
>but you definitley benefit from understanding where and how its power
>and flexibility come from.
>
>Chris Pine's tutorial is supposed to be very good even for people
>who've never programmed before (I haven't read it personally):
>http://pine.fm/Learn...
>
>I personally learned Ruby from the Pickaxe v2, which I found to be the
>best book on a programming language that I've ever read (version 1 is
>available online: http://ruby-doc.org/docs/Progra...
>
>If you're up for something a bit more difficult, strange, and
>wonderful, you should give _why's poignant guide a try (it's got
>cartoon foxes!): http://ruby-doc.org/docs/Progra...
>
>As for Rails, I personally couldn't get much out of most of the online
>documents on it. I got the Agile Web Development book and that
>cleared up a lot for me. In any case here's a list of Rails tutorials
>and documentation, youre mileage may vary:
>http://www.rubyonrail...
>
>On 2/7/06, eain.jones@gmail.com <eain.jones@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm looking to start developing a simple task management application
>> with a web interface.Three views - User/Admin/Status. No database yet
>> as i think that would be overkill. I intend to store the data in xml
>> files for the moment.
>>
>> My question - i am pretty new to development. I have been working as a
>> qa engineer for some time and have good unix skills but have only ever
>> really played with java/perl with no great success. Have had enough of
>> wishing for applications or features. I'm going to write my own.
>>
>> I would appreciate any pointers the group could offer. For starters i
>> am unsure if i should develop in vanilla ruby or implement ruby on
>> rails if it is to be a web application. My initial thoughts are that
>> learning ruby will be enough for a start but that i may have to use
>> some MVC model??
>>
>> I have hosting with dreamhost which supports ruby.
>>
>> I am currently expanding the spec and a simple UI which i can post
>> when complete if people think that would be useful. Its based loosely
>> on basecamphq but more aligned to the organisation i work for and i
>> would hope to make it very portable.
>>
>> Many thanks for your time,
>> Eain
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>--
>-Dan Nugent
>





--
Posted with http://De.... Sign up and save your time!

Daniel Nugent

2/7/2006 6:52:00 PM

0

Yep, I copy/pasted the wrong link.

On 2/7/06, Jules Jacobs <devlists-ruby-talk@devlists.com> wrote:
> I think you meant this one:
> http://www.poignantguide...
>
> Use Rails, and not vanilla Ruby. It will save you a lot of time.
>
> Please do yourself a favor, and use a database, and no XML files.
> Databases are where Rails shines, it will be much easier than a XML files

Konrad Roziewski

2/7/2006 9:30:00 PM

0

I completely agree with Jules: try Rails from the start and learn Ruby
as you go. When you encounter some ruby "feature" you don't know,
google for it and see what it does. That way you'll be happy to have
your app quickly and you'll learn exactly those parts of ruby you need.

And for God's sake: forget about XML! ;)

eain.jones

2/8/2006 9:53:00 AM

0

Thanks to everybody for the recommendations. I had a lot of the links
lined up and ready to read , will jump into rails straight away. I am
still a little reluctant to start off my first real project with a
Database back end.I'm concerned that the design and management of the
database could add a serious jump in my already steep learning curve.

If anybody has the time would the be kind enough to outline the pro's
of using a database agains the cons of xml.

My initial thoughts when choosing xml was that it is easily
manipulated, can be easily accessed by other applications and that if
in the future i did want to go to a database it would lend itself to
migration?

Huw Collingbourne

2/8/2006 10:29:00 AM

0

<eain.jones@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1139392354.132788.204000@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Thanks to everybody for the recommendations. I had a lot of the links
> lined up and ready to read , will jump into rails straight away. I am
> still a little reluctant to start off my first real project with a
> Database back end.I'm concerned that the design and management of the
> database could add a serious jump in my already steep learning curve.
>

You may be interested to know that we shall shortly (within the next month
or so) be starting a 'Programming Ruby' series on the Bitwise Magazine site
www.bitwisemag.com . It is our intention to concentrate purely on the Ruby
language for the first few months, only moving on to Rails (and a few other
things) at a later stage. My own view is that while Rails may have, to large
extent, generated a great deal of recent interest in Ruby, it is all too
easy to become seduced by the special features of Rails for creating
powerful applications with relatively little programming with the
consequence that this may 'hide' the features of Ruby itself. We therefore
decided that a logical approach for our coverage would be to concentrate
entirely on the Ruby language initially and only move into graphical and web
application development at a later stage.

best wishes
Huw Collingbourne
================================
Bitwise Magazine
www.bitwisemag.com
Dark Neon Ltd.
================================


anne001

2/8/2006 11:36:00 AM

0

I started with a small ruby project, and I am glad I did, this way I
only have to master
the web server ideas on my first rail project.

James Gray

2/8/2006 5:17:00 PM

0

On Feb 8, 2006, at 3:53 AM, eain.jones@gmail.com wrote:

> I'm concerned that the design and management of the
> database could add a serious jump in my already steep learning curve.

I'll take the road less traveled and recommend you stick with your
first instinct which was not to use Rails. I know most people say
it's so easy to learn and it is, for a web development framework.
However, the key there is that there is more to learn.

Plus, Rails sits on top of Ruby, so starting at the top means you
might be a little fuzzy down the road about what is a Railsism and
what is actually part of the language. I think it's much easier to
go in the other direction, after you have a solid foundation in the
language, though I'm probably in the minority with this line of thought.

Your needs sounded very modest, so you should be able to easily get
something going with the language itself and the help of one or two
standard libraries. Here are my recommendations:

1. Use CGI or WEBrick servlets to handle the logic. These are very
low-tech compared to Rails, but trivial to get going.

2. Give YAML a shot, before you resort to using XML. I'm just
saying that because I think you will be surprised by how much easier
it is in Ruby. You will likely be able to save all your data with a
single line of code and load it with another line. It very painless.

3. Ask us any questions you run into along the way. :)

Good luck with your project, however you decide to approach it.

James Edward Gray II

Seth Thomas Rasmussen

2/8/2006 8:03:00 PM

0

Hi James,

> I'll take the road less traveled and recommend you stick with your
> first instinct which was not to use Rails. I know most people say
> it's so easy to learn and it is, for a web development framework.
> However, the key there is that there is more to learn.
>
> Plus, Rails sits on top of Ruby, so starting at the top means you
> might be a little fuzzy down the road about what is a Railsism and
> what is actually part of the language. I think it's much easier to
> go in the other direction, after you have a solid foundation in the
> language, though I'm probably in the minority with this line of thought.

I hope not, as I feel the same way, and this seems very rational.
Personally, I read Pickaxe Dos before writing a single line of Ruby,
much less Rails, and I feel it was very beneficial going into Rails. I
believe it has provided for less frustration with a great many details,
and enabled me to think smarter about how to do and even extend Rails
as I keep on learning.

eain.jones

2/8/2006 9:34:00 PM

0

James and Seth,

Thanks for your words of encouragement. Sage indeed. I'm going to start
with ruby and work my way up. YAML seems to be exactly what i am
looking for. I had not run across it before.I also like the look of
webrick. I really want to keep things as simple as possible. Its a lot
to take in but exciting.

I'm finishing up my simple design and will post it here soon so folks
can take a look if they have the time or inclination. I must reiterate,
I am new to development so mistakes will be made, bugs will be logged
and hands will be wrung, just go easy.

With regard to the design, for a web application i understand MVC
pattern is very popular, we use it a lot where i work. For my
application i'm trying to figure out where everything lives. This is
proving to me a challenge.

Thanks,
Eain