I'm working with the following tutorial:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-ws-rubyrails/index.html
Everything after step 7 there results in a routing error. I've made sure to gem install actionwebservice; I can't quite figure out how to get this running successfully. I get this:
No route matches [GET] "/hello_message/invoke"
Thoughts? I'm pretty new to rails so I could be overlooking something very trivial here. Thank you for your time.
The tutorial you linked to is dated 2008, and Rails has come a long, long way in the last 6 years. Are you sure you are using the Rails version listed on the article? If you are using version 3+ instead of 2 as listed on the article, all kinds of things could be broken or inaccurate.
Even though it sounds like you have some time in on this project, I think you would be a lot better off going through something more recent like Rails in Action or Agile Web Development with Rails 4th edition, since version 2 is no longer being updated.
http://www.manning.com/katz/
http://pragprog.com/book/rails4/agile-web-development-with-rails
Related
I am in the middle of putting up my Ruby on Rails app to a live server but have to downgrade from version 3 to 2 because that is all my shared hosting provider supports. I was able to adapt my models, controllers and routes without much problem. The problem I am having is with the views rendering.
I went through the process of creating a default layout for each controller as Rails 2 requires. When I run the app on the server, it starts just fine and the smokescreen index.html is visible but if I delete that and try to see the real app, all I get are broken links and files that are unable to load according to the browser.
I am sure this is an issue due to the downgrade. Any ideas on what I am doing wrong?
Doing a downgrade from Rails 3 to Rails 2 seems to me like a crazy thing to do for many reasons:
1) Rails 4 is already released. You should be looking to upgrade instead of downgrading.
2) There are many hosts out there that offer amazing services and even some free. Heroku is a great place to start if you don't want to manage your own server.
3) Rails 3 was almost a complete rewrite of the way Rails worked. This includes the addition of the Assets Pipeline which is a blessing in terms of development.
With that said, if you're still looking to downgrade, I would try to revert the steps found in many Upgrading Rails 2 to Rails 3 tutorials out there.
They are a bit long and many steps required to put here but a simple google search will yield many great resources. Here's a Railscasts http://railscasts.com/episodes/226-upgrading-to-rails-3-part-2
I have just started using 3.0.7. I am about 2 weeks of development in.
I was wondering if I should keep building for 3.0.7 or switch to 3.1 before I have too much code to port over? I like most of the new features (my only fear is not having good error messages when I use coffeescript), so I'd like to code towards the latest and greatest if it's relatively safe.
The javascript standards look interesting, and the attr_accessible fix sounds like it's very much appreciated.
Is Rails 3.1 compatible with all the gems out there though?
Also, if I go the 3.1 route, is hard or easy to migrate my project towards it? How might one go about that?
I guess this is a lot of mini yet related questions. I'd really appreciate some answers. Thank you.
I think if you want to ride on Rails 3.1 you should do it :). As for me I have some projects on Rails 2.3.5, 3.0.5 and would like to port them on Rails 3.1 but there is to much code there :). So don't be afraid and go to the fresh stuff (unless your code overflow :) ).
Rails 3.1 are pretty stable for now (I didn't have much problems with installing and using it)
If you're only two weeks into a project then it makes sense to stay on the edge and move to 3.1.
The way I'd do it is clone my project to a new dir (you're using git / similar version control, right?), change the Rails version in my Gemspec, run tests and play around to see what got broken (if anything). Based on the results you can figure out whether the effort is too great.
Regarding gem compatibility, hardly anything is compatible with all gems out there. Since you're two weeks in, you probably know which gems you use. Test like I suggested and you'll have an idea whether it's compatible with what you need. If you're using popular gems, then they'll most likely be updated to work with 3.1 soon enough.
is it worth the change from Rails 2 to 3 if im starting to work on a new application? are all the plug-ins and gems available for 2 now available for 3 as well? im used to developing and learning on Rails 2 and I'm afraid of switching over.
Thank You
You can check if the plugins you use work with Rails 3 here. Personally I'd say, if all the plugins that you use work with Rails 3 then you should upgrade, there are some nice changes in Rails 3 that are worth using.
I just started a Rails project a few weeks ago with Rails 3, and I've been quite happy so far.
Some gems/plugins don't quite work yet. For example, Selenium and friends seem to be a little behind, though after trying a few plugins I finally got it working fine through Capybara. In_place_editing isn't working out-of-the-box for me (I suspect because of Rails 3), though there are alternatives and it's not complex at all. And I had some trouble with factory_girl, though apparently there is a version for Rails 3 now.
But in general, most plugins I've tried seem to be working fine at this point. Maarons has already pointed you at RailsPlugins.org if you want to check for a specific plugin.
Finally, there are bunch of things that are just better in Rails 3 (see the release notes). I used Rails 2 for a smaller project a while back, and using Rails 3 now, I was pleasantly surprised by the new routing (much less confusing), and the added bundler support (makes deploying much less scary).
Since you're setting up a new project, I'll also mention that I've been quite happy with Ruby 1.9.2 (as opposed to 1.8.7). Check PragDave's blog post for some major changes. The only thing that I recall needing explicit tinkering was the debugger -- just use the ruby-debug19 gem and you'll be fine.
Fear isn't a good enough reason not to switch.
There are quite a few plugins that only work on Rails 3, so I'd recommend starting a new project with 3, if you're starting now.
I would expect this question the other way around :)
If you are starting a new application then I'd say always try to go for the latest stable versions unless there is some really good reason not too.
Not only does it save you the trouble of migrating at a later stage (which in a likely hood will happen sooner or later), but you get to improve on a personal level as well by learning something new. And the later is something I find very important. If it's not challenging, it's not fun, and if it's not fun, then it's not gonna be good (for me at least).
As for all plug-ins and gems being available, probably not but the ones that are still being develped and improved will be if they are not already.
You will have to switch eventually, so this is a good time. Why waste time on something you will have to change sooner or later? Rails ecosystem is quite responsive, and most plugins and gems are already 3.x compatible. Many have even deprecated 2.x support.
I have this new project I need to build. I want to have at least started on it by the end of this month. So which version should I use though? Should I just stick with the stable Rails2 or try to use Rails3 so I won't have to migrate later? Which one would you suggest for someone that is still learning Rails?
Rails 3 definitely won't have the resources available for it that Rails 2 does, and Rails 3 will still be changing quite fast, so unless you're especially happy getting your support from the source code I'd stick with Rails 2
I know you've already accepted Rails 2, but I'm throwing this out, anyway:
I've been using Rails 3 for my newer projects, and haven't noticed any significant bugs. Of course, I've only used popular gems and plugins that therefore are already have dedicated teams who have made them compatible with Rails 3.
You can fairly easily check if your plugins are compatible at RailsPlugins.org. Some might require you to use a specific Rails 3 branch from Github, so be sure to check the comments on reports that say "Working".
As long as you won't be using anything terribly obscure, you should be good to go for Rails 3, which is a fantastic piece of work from the Rails team. Arel makes my day every day.
Rails 3 will not be out of beta sooner than fall this year and I guess it may shift. Rails 2 works pretty well and you will not need to debug unstable code while learning. Many tools, gems etc. have still not migrated.
I agree with you both.
You should use rails2. Rails3 is still in beta and many problems can be encouter.
In my company we've migrate to rails3 and it's foolish. We spend a lot of time to debug/modify plugins for rails3 ...
Now it's up to you to make your choice :)
I'm developing an application with Ruby on Rails that I want to maintain for at least a few years, so I'm concerned about the next version coming up soon.
Going from Rails 1 to Rails 2 was such a big pain that I didn't bother and froze my gems and let the application die, alone, in the dark.
On this project I don't want to do that. First because this new version looks awesome, but also because this application may turn into a real product.
How can I prepare my application so that it will be upgradable with as little changes as possible.
How time consuming do you think switching version will be?
And what about my server? Deployment?
I'm already looking at deprecation notices... what else can I do?
The best thing you could do would be to follow development of Rails 3 via blogs and the Github repository and keep up a copy of your app along with it.
The official Ruby on Rails blog is updated with "What's new in Edge" posts every once in awhile. There are other blogs that often write about new things in edge as well. Larger features are often highlighted in these blogs, so you know about all the cool new features you can play with.
I'm not sure how close Rails 3 is to release (last I heard the core team was talking about a release at RailsConf 2009 in May), but you can always freeze the edge version of Rails into your application and just see what breaks. If you are using git, or another DVCS, you might make a branch specifically for Rails 3 and periodically update Rails to the latest edge code. Just be aware that edge Rails is a moving target so things in your app may break or fix themselves as you are pulling in newer Rails code.
Update:
Jeremy McAnally has a ton of info on upgrading from Rails 2 to Rails 3 on his blog.
http://omgbloglol.com/
I don't think there is going to be a major problem. Going off what was said in that initial report the Rails team realized that they can't do a major rewrite like they did from 1 to 2.
They even say:
I’m sure there’ll be some parts of Rails 3 that are incompatible, but we’ll try to keep them to a minimum and make it really easy to convert a Rails 2.x application to Rails 3.
I would be more concerned going from Merb to Rails 3.
The single most important thing you can do to make it easy to migrate to a new version of rails is to have a comprehensive test suite. Without a good test suite, I would never have the confidence that the new version of rails hasn't broken something in my app. On the current Rails app I'm working on, we started on Rails 2.1.1 back in October of 2008. Since then, we've migrated to Rails 2.1.2, 2.2.2, 2.3.2, 2.3.3 and now 2.3.4. I did the migrations to 2.3.2, 2.3.3 and 2.3.4...and for the 2.3.2 and 2.3.3 upgrades, we had some failing tests that alerted us to problems we would not have discovered without having such a good test suite. The failing tests actually alerted us to a regressive bug in rails that there was a patch for on the Rails lighthouse but that was not included in the release (since it was discovered, right after the release).
Once you've got that test suite in place, just stay current with each rails release (waiting a couple weeks to upgrade is fine, just don't skip any of the releases).
Yehuda Katz (a member of the Rails core team) has stated that there will most likely be a transitional release, containing deprecation warnings and such.
So as long as you have a good test suite to expose the inevitable upgrade problems, and stay current with the Rails release, the migration to Rails 3 should not be too difficult.
As simple as:
One
Two
Three
Great screencasts from Ryan Bates.
For preparing your application, the best way it what Jared said. Follow the Rails3 development.
For the time consuming, I think it depends of how you've followed the rails3 development before it's release.
And for the deployment, it shouldn't take too much problems. Rails 3 will be using Rack. So you can start it with mongrel, passenger or any server/gateway it shouldn't give you any problem.
There are some major changes in Rails 3, I posted about my experience upgrading my app to Rails 3 here: http://rails3.community-tracker.com/permalinks/5/notes-from-the-field-upgrading-to-rails-3
A good start in preparing would be to migrate over to using bundler. And doing a very deep review of strings that will go through the new XSS protection scheme.
There are going to be some automated compatibility checkers. Also, keep an eye on http://www.railsplugins.org/ so that you know if the libraries you depend on are going to be upgraded. The Rails Core team seems to be giving a lot of advance notice to the community this time around, so any lib that is actively maintained should be good to go.
Just do one thing
take a backup of your old version project first and then
on terminal(command prompt) write
rails new path/of/the/project
for example if my 2.3.* project is at home/rails_projects/myproject then
rails new home/rails_projects/myproject
or
cd home/rails_projects
rails new myproject
It will ask if there is any modifications done in any /config or other files. Do appropriate.