A Simple Guide for Installation of Ruby on Rails Environment

A Simple Guide For Installation of Ruby on Rails Environment

This particular guide is meant to provide assistance with the installation of the Ruby on Rails environment.  It has been kept extremely lucid with the objective of making it simpler for the beginners to follow it and perform the entire task from scratch.  I will like to provide some information about Ruby & Rails before we move ahead with the installation tutorial.

Rails is a web development framework, which runs on the Ruby programming language.  The objective of designing this framework is to make programming extremely basic and more productive.  In other words, it presents such functionalists which considerably alleviate the need of writing codes, and at the same time helps programmers accomplish more from their work.  It also suggests basic frameworks/paths which it thinks are the best suited for the project.  Following these suggestions does accentuate productivity of the programmers.  It works on such fascinating concepts as DRY (which curtails the need of repetitive coding), COC (providing suggestions to you on the basis of its assumptions of your work and preferred conventions) & REST (using various ways to hasten your development process), and follows the MVC architecture (proposes easy use of DRY coding and simple maintenance of codes).

On the other hand, Ruby is a dynamic and open source programming language.  The emphasis of this programming language is on simplicity and productivity.  Towards the same cause, it presents a syntax that is very natural to read and easy to write.

Getting back to the Ruby on Rails installation, following are certain steps that you can follow:

1. If you are using Windows, downloading Rails is an extremely simple process.  You can have an access to Rails’ one step installer which makes its download simple and quick.  Once, the installation has been performed, you have to ensure that everything is running properly and the installation has been performed correctly.  Run the code $ rails — version.  If it says something that resembles one of Rails’ versions, eg. Rails 3.2.1, then this is an indication of the fact that things are in place and you are good to proceed further.

2. The next step is the creation of the blog application.  This one shouldn’t be very difficult either.  All you have to do is open up a terminal.  You have to then identify and open the folder in which you can create files.  Next, you have to punch in the code, i.e. $ rails new blog.  This code will help you establish a rails application which is known as blog in a directory by the same name.  Now you have to switch the folder where you made the application, and continue working from there.

PS: What is worth noting is that our code / command above merely created a folder in the working directory of yours.  There are various other folders (automatically generated) which combine together to define the Rails application’s structure.

3. You are expected to know about a database and its role in the process of application development to be able to appreciate this step in the installation procedure.  Such databases are important in case of rails too as all applications, developed using this framework, converse/interact with a data base.  Hence, you have to carefully configure the data base of your choice.  You can take the decision of the data base that you wish to configure.  Generally, rails applications work best with SQLife3, MySQL, Postgre SQL.  While SQLife3 is the default data base, you can configure the other two databases too, if you deem fit.

4. Now, you are almost ready.  Configuring the data base could be considered the second last step in the process.  The last one is to create an empty data base with which you can start working.  Rails provides you with ways in which this job can be performed successfully.  All you have to do is run a ‘Rake’ command.  You can punch the following code: $ rake db:create.  This will create your data base, and you can start working.  What has to be noted that now you would have your development and test data bases ready in the folder.

Hence, if you follow the procedure carefully, you would realize that it isn’t very difficult to start working with the Ruby on Rails environment.

AUTHOR’S BIO:

Jill Eliott is a content publisher at eSiteWorld and knows many reputed application developers in the industry.  Most of the top developers tell her that the success of Ruby on Rails Development also depends on how seamlessly has the installation process been performed.  She believes that once the installation process has been consummated, using Ruby on Rails can be a pleasant, simple and enjoyable experience.