» posted on Saturday, July 10th, 2010 at 9:18 am by admin

Ruby on Rails

What is Ruby?

Ruby is a scripting language, in the recent tradition of Perl, Python, and Tcl. It allows for a rapid development cycle and the rapid prototyping of applications. It is usually interpreted, requiring no compilation step.

Ruby is an open source object oriented programming language created by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto. First released in japan in 1995, Ruby has gained worldwide acceptance as an easy to learn and powerful language, especially since the advent of Ruby on Rails

But it is also a general purpose language. Its flexible syntax makes it easy to write a quick three-line script to do a one-time task; but it is also flexible enough to power larger applications of many thousands of lines. Thus it can be compared to Kornshell, but it can also be compared to Java or C++.

It is a radically object-oriented language. The OOP features of Ruby surpass those of Java and C++, approaching Smalltalk in flexibility. Primitive types in Ruby are true objects, so wrappers are never required. Ruby allows singleton methods (added to individual objects rather than classes); this is useful in GUI programming, and in other situations as well. Ruby has open classes in the sense that a program can add to the existing classes at will, making new methods available even to previously-instantiated objects. Code itself can be “objectified” as a code block wrapped in an object. Many of the well-known OO design patterns have already been implemented as Ruby libraries.

Ruby is a dynamic language. Runtime type information (RTTI) is an inherent part of the language, and the reflection API is very advanced, offering a set of hooks, queries, and callbacks that make dynamic programming possible.

Ruby is a Very High-Level Language (VHLL). It has a rich set of built-in classes and methods allowing the manipulation of arrays, strings, hashes, files, and other objects. It allows code blocks to be passed as parameters and borrows CLU’s concept of an iterator. It has true closures and code blocks that “remember” the context in which they were created. It has a portable (non-native) threading mechanism that works on Windows as well as Unix platforms.

What is Rails?

Rails is a web development framework written in the Ruby language. It is designed to make programming web applications easier by making several assumptions about what every developer needs to get started. It allows you to write less code while accomplishing more than many other languages and frameworks. Longtime Rails developers also report that it makes web application development more fun.

Rails is opinionated software. That is, it assumes that there is a best way to do things, and it’s designed to encourage that best way – and in some cases to discourage alternatives. If you learn “The Rails Way” you’ll probably discover a tremendous increase in productivity. If you persist in bringing old habits from other languages to your Rails development, and trying to use patterns you learned elsewhere, you may have a less happy experience.

The Rails philosophy includes several guiding principles:

DRY – “Don’t Repeat Yourself” – suggests that writing the same code over and over again is a bad thing.
Convention Over Configuration – means that Rails makes assumptions about what you want to do and how you’re going to do it, rather than letting you tweak every little thing through endless configuration files.
REST is the best pattern for web applications – organizing your application around resources and standard HTTP verbs is the fastest way to go.

What’s Ruby on Rails?

Ruby on Rails is an opensource web framework that’s optimised for programmer happiness and sustainable productivity. it lets you write great code by favoring convention over configuration

Good Starting books:

Ruby Pocket Reference

Product Description

Although Ruby is an easy language to learn, in the heat of action you may find that you can’t remember the correct syntax for a conditional or the name of a method. This handy pocket reference offers brief yet clear explanations of Ruby’s core components, from operators to reserved words to data structures to method syntax, highlighting those key features that you’ll likely use every day when coding Ruby.

Whether you’ve come to Ruby because of the Rails web development framework –Ruby’s killer app — or simply because it’s a relatively clean, powerful and expressive language that’s useful for a lot of applications, the Ruby Pocket Reference is organized to help you find what you need quickly. This book not only will get you up to speed on how Ruby works, it provides you with a handy reference you can use anywhere, anytime.

In this book, you find essential information on:

Reserved words, operators, comments, numbers, variables, ranges, and symbols
Predefined variables andglobal constants
Conditional statements, method use, classes, and modules (mixins)
Lists of methods from the Object, String, Array, and Hash classes and the Kernel module
sprintf andtime formatting directories
Interactive Ruby (irb) and the Ruby debugger
Ruby documentation

You also get information on the RubyGems package utility and Rake, a build tool similar to make.. If you’re using Ruby daily and just want the facts-fast-Ruby Pocket Reference is your book.

About the Author

Michael Fitzgerald is Principal at Overdue Books LLC, a publishing and writing firm. He is the author of Learning Ruby, Ruby Pocket Reference, XML Pocket Reference, Third Edition with Simon St. Laurent, XML Hacks, and Learning XSLT, all published by O’Reilly. He is also the author of Building B2B Applications with XML: A Resource Guide and XSL Essentials (both by John Wiley & Sons). His books have been translated into Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese. He has also been a regular contributor to XML.com. Michael likes to ski (downhill and cross country), ride and train horses, and spend time with his family.

Rails Pocket Reference.

Product Description

Rails 2.1 brings a new level of stability and power to this acclaimed web development framework, but keeping track of its numerous moving parts is still a chore. Rails Pocket Reference offers you a painless alternative to hunting for resources online, with brief yet thorough explanations of the most frequently used methods and structures supported by Rails 2.1, along with key concepts you need to work through the framework’s most tangled corners.

Organized to help you quickly find what you need, this book will not only get you up to speed on how Rails works, it also provides a handy reference you can use anywhere, anytime. Inside, you’ll find essential information on how to:

Install Rails with RubyGems
Build, compile, and process files with Rake
Test Rails applications using assertions and fixtures
Use Rails with Ajax
Connect objects to a database using ActiveRecord
Make web requests with the Action Controller framework
Use REST web service APIs

And much more. Save yourself hours of frustration: If you use Rails daily and just want the facts — fast — this is your book.

About the Author

Eric Berry is a Ruby on Rails developer for AtTask (http://www.attask.com), a leader in web-based project management software. He is also the creator of Solid Core Blogger, a Rails version 2.0 blogger application, which can be seen in action at solidcoresolutions.com. Before coming to AtTask, he was a co-founder of ShareAPhoto.com which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 20

http://rubyonrails.org/

http://rubyonrails.org/documentation

http://guides.rubyonrails.org/

Top 12 Ruby on Rails Tutorials – http://www.digitalmediaminute.com/article/1816/top-ruby-on-rails-tutorials

Getting Started With Ruby On Rails- http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/19/getting-started-with-ruby-on-rails/

http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/haefel-oracle-ruby.html

http://www.codecapers.com/post/A-Ruby-on-Rails-Tutorial-for-NET-Developers.aspx