I'm totally new to Ruby but not to programming. All I did was going through try ruby and reading differences from other few languages I know better (mostly PHP and some Python). So I have no idea how Rails differ from Ruby and maybe this is an absurd question.
Anyways...
I don't want (or am able) to install Ruby on my machine and I'd still like to build a single working source file. Is it possible to have an online compiler of some sort? If so, how?
If I write a Rails web site (comprised of either one or many files) using any given host (that far I know I can), would I be able to use that same code with very minor modifications and just run as a Ruby app? Again, how?
(new) What about the other way around: a Ruby app turning into a Rails web page? Easy to do?
I really hope for a "yes" on them all, but I doubt on the 1st and not so much on the last. :)
There are online "IDEs" you can use to try out ruby:
http://ideone.com
http://codepad.org
But mind you that Ruby on Rails is a framework written in Ruby and those sites don't have RoR installed. Also note you that a Rails app has many, many files.
If you have the same code and same server configuration (version of ruby, database, plugins, etc.) you should only need minor modifications to the config file.
Ruby on Rails is on Ruby. So whatever works on Ruby should work just fine on RoR with minor modifications. However, you'll probably want to rewrite the app to take advantage of many of the features RoR provides.
Related
Some background:
I am new to Ruby and Rails and I've been assigned to get an already completed Ruby on Rails project to compile from source.
The project has, as far as I've been able to discover, little to no documentation on how to set it up. The developers are unavailable for me to contact.
After doing some tutorials and learning the basics I have been trying to get the code to compile and run. My platform/setup is currently:
Windows 7
Ruby 1.9.3
Rails 3.2.13
Although I am attempting to develop with a VirtualBox Ubuntu setup alongside of this because I suspect it will be easier in the long run.
Despite there being no Gemfile for this project I have managed to (I believe) pin down and install all of the necessary gem packages (hopefully compatible versions). I am now running into this issue:
in alias_method': undefined methodpath' for class `ActionController::UploadedStringIO' (NameError)
As far as my searches have led me to believe this is a bug that can occur when the versions of Ruby and Rails are not correct/incompatible?
Is there a way to "reverse engineer" what version of Ruby and Rails was used to develop this project in the first place from the code alone? Could this bug be caused by me using 3.2.13 Rails if the original developers were using 1.8.7 Ruby? It seems to me that if I can emulate their setup closely enough then the source should compile and I can get down to business.
Additionally I am using the default WEBrick server. Is there a way to determine what the original team used for the web service? Does it even matter if they used a Apache setup or are these server implementations mostly interchangeable aside from efficiency?
Thank you for your time. If you have any further advice on how to handle this sort of project I'd love to hear that too.
If there is no Gemfile, it points to the Rails app being 2.3 or earlier. As for the Web server, they are interchangeable, but there is really very little chance that they were using Webrick, due to its ability (or lack thereof) to handle many concurrent requests. Chances are, they were using mongrel, or passenger via Apache or Nginx.
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.
I have a old app made on rails 1.2.5, this application have alot of access per day.
I intend to upgrade my server (a joyent accelerator) to run ruby 1.9.x and work with rails 3 but I can't stop or move this app to another server.
Have any way to run this application on ruby 1.9?
or run two ruby versions (1.8.7 and 1.9) at the same time?
or on the last case upgrade my app to work with rails 3?
Thanks.
There was quite a few patches to Rails to make it run under Ruby 1.9. I think you are up for a challenge if you try to do that. With Ruby Version Manager you can work with multiple ruby environments from interpreters to sets of gems.
Does it have to be switched over to Rails3 and Ruby 1.9?
Can you just throw you old app on a virtualized server and keep the app running as is?
The reason for my suggestion is that we just went through a similar case. A local business (a construction association) had a pair of apps developed for them 2-3 years ago (works with Rails 1.2.6). Nothing overly major (a billing app, and a bid/contractor/customer management system). Everything works, so no need to update anything.
Their hosting provider was not willing to keep an old outdated rails available in shared hosting environment. Hosting shop cited maintenance can't be streamlined, security concerns, etc. Sure enough, the same host offers to rewrite the apps for current technologies (for a price, of course).
Client wasn't happy with them. The shop that developed the apps since closed and the developers left for greener pastures. But everything works, so why reinvent the wheel, right? Client went looking for alternatives. Came to us. We sat down with the client, did some cost/benefit analysis and decided to just host in a virtualized environment (at another provider). Did that in a week (with some hick-ups): back-up, move, restore, test, everything works. And it's been working now for 3 months without any issues.
This might not work for you, but unless you need to add to the app why fix what ain't broken?
Rails 3 works with Ruby 1.8.7
Another option (apart from obvious RVM) is to leave your Ruby 1.8.7 and Rails 1.x as is and install latest JRuby and Rails 3.0 and dependent gems with jruby -S gem install rails. Ruby and JRuby gems perfectly coexist without any interference. OpenSolaris in Joyent's Accelerator is good at running Java, so you won't have much problems with it.
P.S. Btw, I won't recommend updating your Rails 1.x app to 3.x, unless you're planning to add lots of new features to it. It can be very painful, especially if you used lots of old-school gems and plugins.
I am interested in developing a workstation-based application that communicates with a proprietary data server and that presents information from that server to the user. I am not intending the user interface to be browser-based, and have been considering Qt as my framework. Should I consider RoR for this? Thanks.
Rails is specifically a web application framework, however there are GUI toolkits that can be used with Ruby, including Qt (although not the open source version).
Rails is a web framework, so you should not use it. However, you should absolutely consider using Ruby. I've never used Ruby with Qt, but I've had a lot of success using JRuby with Swing. I use the Profligacy gem, which suits my needs quite well.
Being a web framework you may not use rails, but you may certainly use some parts of rails.
For example just use require 'active_record' and you instantly have access to AR and all its magic - validations, belongs_to, has_many and other similar associations.
You can use the ActiveRecord part of Ruby on Rails, which for a long time was the most interesting part of RoR. https://edgeguides.rubyonrails.org/active_record_basics.html
Alternatively, use another Ruby ORM, like DataMapper: http://datamapper.org/
The answer is yes. I've been working on a project, Qt on Rails, which combines Qt with a Rails back end. The end result is that you can develop your Qt app's in Ruby, harness the libraries of Rails and there's support for scaffolding of apps as well.
It’s still a 'Work In Progress' but the current latest version at the Qt on Rails github repository (http://github.com/theirishpenguin/qtonrails) will certainly give a flavour of where the project is headed. Contributors and feedback is most welcome and detailed blog post is available on the project.
About half a year ago, when I started to learn Ruby and Rails, I first tried Ruby 1.9 but I soon gave up, because at that time nothing worked out of the box and almost every helping blog or tutorial was designed for Ruby 1.8.
What about now? (Dec 2009) Is it possible to get an existing Rails application running by a Ruby and Rails beginner without running into problems which can only be fixed by an absolute Ruby and Rails professional?
Unfortunately I dind't have good experiences with Ruby 1.9 and Rails.
You can read more here: Has anyone successfully deployed a Rails project with Ruby 1.9.1?
My opinion is that migrating an existing Rails app from Ruby 1.8.x to Ruby 1.9.1 is not as easy as you would think, event with an excellent test suite.
I'm also quite sure that most of the problems arise from trying to convert an existing application because you are working with an established code base.
Starting with a new Rails app with Ruby 1.9 should probably easier because you can trace a problem as soon as you write a single line of code so you can easily isolate which component is not compatible.
When migrating an existing app I had hard time trying to figure out which stack level was actually not compatible with Ruby 1.9. And there are more than one incompatible libraries at the same time I can't tell you how it's difficult to understand which one should be fixed first and which one originated the final error.
In 99.9% of the cases yes, there were rare cases where u might find problems but they should be solved with the new release.
As for the external gems and plugins, most of them now are fully compatible with ruby 1.9, however sepcial cases might exist but I'm not aware of any right now.