Ruby on Rails is the latest craze (actually it’s been a craze for a while now, I’ve just been slow to adapt). If you haven’t tried it, then I would suggest you do so immediately! It makes the job of any serious web developer a hundred times easier and makes you much more powerful too. Using Ruby on Rails in web development is like bringing a gun to a fist fight.
Ruby on what?
Ruby on Rails (or simply Rails for short) is a web application framework that greatly streamlines the process of web development. Its main advantage is that it favors “convention over configuration” meaning many of its defaults are what you typically need. This allows you to focus on the design of your web application instead of the implementation.
What on Rails?
Ruby on Rails is called that because the framework is built with the Ruby programming language. Ruby was developed in 1995 by Yukihiro Matsumoto. His goal was to create a language that was “fun” to program with. No more getting frustrated with syntax quirks and the like. Ruby is built on the principle of least surprise, meaning things work as you expect — like Rails, “convention over configuration”.
Since Rails is built on Ruby, you’ll need to know a bit of Ruby before you can jump into Rails but the syntax is easy enough and if you know any programming language at all, it should be a piece of cake! If you only know markup languages (like HTML) you may need to sit down with a nice Ruby book for a day or two to get up to par.
Hop on the Train and Stay on Track! (get it?)
You won’t learn Rails overnight but if you keep with it, you will reap great benefits later on. When experienced, you could potentially whip out a nice web app in a week when it would take over a month otherwise!
What I will do for sure is talk about optimizing Rails and its development environment. But what I’d like to know from you is this: should I write a beginner’s tutorial to Rails? There are already so many out there but if there is interest in a series of articles that will hold your hand through the wonderful world of Rails, I would gladly write them.
Expect a lot more about Rails in the future, in fact I’ve added a Ruby on Rails category!
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