• popular rails pages

Rails is a very popular Web application framework for Ruby modeled after the MVC pattern.

The Rails framework allows a developer to build database applications in Ruby quickly and easily, while emphasizing MVC design. As such, Rails consists of Model, View and Controller components.

Rails’ MVC

The Rails Model component is a set of classes that use Active Record, an ORM class that maps database tables to objects. Active Record uses naming conventions to determine mappings, thus a specific set of rules must be followed in order for Active Record to easily understand a database.

For View, Rails uses a similar system to JSP/ASP: html files with injections of code. The idea is that HTML files serve as templates, and dynamic elements are inserted at render time.

Finally as a Controller Rails uses ‘Action Pack’, which includes a class called ApplicationController. Rails controller development involves subclassing the ApplicationController class and writing methods that reference actions serviced by the Rails application. For example, an action might be to render a widget id=5, this would correspond to the widget method, widget.rhtml would be the template, and the url would be /widget/5.

Rails can automatically build an MVC application capable of CRUD based on a database set up using Rails’ naming convention using something called ‘scaffolding’, which generates the various classes and rhtml files needed to perform CRUD on an arbitrary table design. Scaffolding is not a replacement for application design, but rather a way to introduce new users to Rails, and to speed application development by putting basic pillars in place quickly for experienced Rails developers.

Ruby on rails also allows developers to easily add pre-written code in the form of a plugin. This may be from a small validation or helper method to a whole login system. The Rails Lodge plugin directory has a detailed list on what is currently available.

Although Rails uses on things like naming conventions and set url schemas, these are all overrideable and merely serve as a default setup. Rails’ URL schema is notable for not relying on GETs in a query string, this is possibly in response to Google, whose search rewards sites that do not use query strings to construct entire pages.

The History of Rails

Rails was developed and released in 2004 by David Heinemeier Hansson, a developer at 37Signals. 37Signals is a web application development and consulting firm, and David had used Rails to help in writing Basecamp, a commercial project management web service offered by the company.

Since its release, Rails has had various major releases, starting with the stable 1.0 release in December of 2005 and a major update in version 1.1 released in March of 2006. Over time, Rails has incorporated Ajax built in functionalities, and many of the subsequent applications 37Signals has built using Rails have showcased this, including the free web service Backpack.

Server integration

Ruby on Rails can run on any web server that supports CGI, or preferrably FastCGI. mod_ruby+Apache is another option, however it is discouraged as unlike mod_php, mod_ruby should not be used with multiple sites running on the same Apache server. This problem is often a source of criticism for the framework, as lacking a safe native module, Rails cannot run as quickly as it might.

Rails also supports a wide variety of database servers, ranging from an embedded SQLite library to Oracle. Most users of Rails choose MySQL or PostgreSQL as a backend database server, Rails’ object relational mapping means that database access is abstracted and a developer can use whichever database they are comfortable with.