After wanting to try it out for some time I finally decided to jump in and give rails a try. I also thought it would be interesting to blog the process.
Installing rails
I run Mac OS 10.5 as my primary operating system, which ships with Rails installed out of the box. Ok so all I needed to do was update the install. Expecting that to be painful I was pleasantly surprised when it was this easy:.
sh-3.2#sudo gem update rails
Updating installed gems...
Bulk updating Gem source index for: http://gems.rubyforge.org
Attempting remote update of rails
Successfully installed rails-2.1.2
1 gem installed
Gems updated: rails
That was the easiest update to any software I have ever done.
Building the first application
Ok I am going to cheat with this one (because Rails lets me) and type one line to get a working codebase:
bruce$ rails helloWorld
create
create app/controllers
create app/helpers
create app/models
create app/views/layouts
create config/environments
create config/initializers
create db
create doc
create lib
create lib/tasks
create log
create public/images
create public/javascripts
create public/stylesheets
create script/performance
create script/process
create test/fixtures
create test/functional
create test/integration
create test/unit
create vendor
create vendor/plugins
create tmp/sessions
create tmp/sockets
create tmp/cache
create tmp/pids
create Rakefile
create README
create app/controllers/application.rb
create app/helpers/application_helper.rb
create test/test_helper.rb
create config/database.yml
create config/routes.rb
create config/initializers/inflections.rb
create config/initializers/mime_types.rb
create config/initializers/new_rails_defaults.rb
create config/boot.rb
create config/environment.rb
create config/environments/production.rb
create config/environments/development.rb
create config/environments/test.rb
create script/about
create script/console
create script/dbconsole
create script/destroy
create script/generate
create script/performance/benchmarker
create script/performance/profiler
create script/performance/request
create script/process/reaper
create script/process/spawner
create script/process/inspector
create script/runner
create script/server
create script/plugin
create public/dispatch.rb
create public/dispatch.cgi
create public/dispatch.fcgi
create public/404.html
create public/422.html
create public/500.html
create public/index.html
create public/favicon.ico
create public/robots.txt
create public/images/rails.png
create public/javascripts/prototype.js
create public/javascripts/effects.js
create public/javascripts/dragdrop.js
create public/javascripts/controls.js
create public/javascripts/application.js
create doc/README_FOR_APP
create log/server.log
create log/production.log
create log/development.log
create log/test.log
The one command creates the complete working application, sweet. Now how do I run this?
Running the rails application
Apparently running the application is just as easy:
bruce$ cd helloWorld
bruce$ script/server
=> Booting Mongrel (use 'script/server webrick' to force WEBrick)
=> Rails 2.1.2 application starting on http://0.0.0.0:3000
=> Call with -d to detach
=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server
** Starting Mongrel listening at 0.0.0.0:3000
** Starting Rails with development environment...
** Rails loaded.
** Loading any Rails specific GemPlugins
** Signals ready. TERM => stop. USR2 => restart. INT => stop (no restart).
** Rails signals registered. HUP => reload (without restart). It might not work well.
** Mongrel 1.1.4 available at 0.0.0.0:3000
** Use CTRL-C to stop.
Conclusion
So after getting my feet wet, I am definitely keen to have a deeper look in to Rails, so apparently it is time to learn Ruby. And what the heck, I might play around with Watir on the way, just to see how close it’s cousin WatiN really is.
