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I'm looking to start on a project web 2.0 app for a bit of fun. I'm a little confused as to what sort of backend I will require. The site revolves around a user submitting an item, then other users submitting responses, then rating each response up or down. That sounds a little like digg.com I realise. How do I go about tackling a project like this? Is a ruby-on-rails + MySQL solution a good way to start? I've also read it could be developed using wordpress :S
Are there any guides/documentation/global-tutorials for this sort of thing? I'm very new to web applications and am using this as a learning tool.
Dom
First things first, when starting to learn something like this, read a book.
If its Rails you are interested in, you could probably skip buying a book on databases, but would advise:
'Agile Web Development with Ruby on Rails' - http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Web-Development-Rails-Programmers/dp/097669400X
'The Rails Way' - http://www.amazon.com/Rails-Way-Addison-Wesley-Professional-Ruby/dp/0321445619
For online guides, Rails has its own 'Rails guides' - http://guides.rubyonrails.org/
For a free guide to Ruby you could try the online pickaxe http://whytheluckystiff.net/ruby/pickaxe/
The plus side to Rails is that you have a Ruby API to access your database (in the form of ActiveRecord) where you can skip out (initially) on learning a lot of SQL (not recommended for performance applications, but good for starting with).
My advice is to learn this stuff before you go on to AJAX.
Oh, and skip web development on Windows, go install VMWare Server and install any distribution, though, for ease of use try Ubuntu (unless you are already on a Linux machine / Mac), it will save you lots of development headaches later on, though may be a pain initially. There are guides for getting set up for this all over Google.
As for your question on databases, even though the books may suggest using sqlite, try and avoid it, and go for something like Postgres instead of MySQL, the benefits will become obvious to you once you start looking at more advanced SQL stuff.
You basically need 3 things to build a site like you're looking for.
1) you need a database to store the state of your application. Something like MySQL or MSSQL Express Edition.
2) you need a server side technology like PHP or ASP.NET to handle the communications between the web browser and the database.
3) you need some javascript code in your browser to capture the events and inputs from your users.
A basic flow might look like this:
A user navigates to page and clicks a button which raises a javascript click event. The click event handler makes an AJAX request back to the PHP code running on the server which saves the data to the database.
Use whatever technology you have some familiarity with or whatever you would like to learn. You can do bad job or great job with any technology at hand.
From the description you provide, it should not be that complicated, but you will definitely need to learn some HTML and CSS, and later JavaScript.
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I need to develop an interactive web app with an admin backend. I have thought about using Ember.js for the frontend and Ruby on Rails (with ActiveAdmin) for the backend.
But i have some questions:
1) Should i put the Ember.js app inside the rails project, or having both separate? Is there any performance difference or something i should know about choosing one of the two strategies? I like to have things as clear as i can.
2) Should i use Ember.js and Rails-API instead? I mean... i think i won't use almost anything about the Ruby on Rails project... But i am confused, as i need the Admin Backend...
I have some experience (a little) on Ruby on Rails, but as i am new to Ember.js, i would really appreciate any help you can give me.
I also worked on a similar kind of project, and believe me having two different projects will benefit you a lot.
I used followings:
Sinatra for backend
Backbone.js for frontend
It makes a lot easier to add the functionality in your code, when you use two separate apps.
I recently had a similar project with an Angular app and a Rails backend. I agree with Arslan. Having a Sinatra, Rack or other API is better than Rails.
Using Ember for some parts, and Rails for other parts (like the Admin section) is a bad idea because:
You are doing the same things 2 different ways: getting data, rendering pages, etc.
You would have 2 separate functionalities in within the Rails app: one Rails app and one API.
It is much simpler to run 2 separate apps than to put a Javascript MVC into a Rails app. You end up with complexity in getting the Asset Pipeline to do what you need.
Here's my take:
If you're fluent in Rails, stick with Rails.
Yes, Sinatra or other frameworks may be lighter, but you'd have to handle lots of things by yourself.
As for Rails-API, it's a good project, but it's a bit of hassle at the beginning to figure out what modules were removed, etc. You can make an API with Rails without Rails-API. You can always use Rails-API at a later point if it turns out you need the performance increase.
Use Ember CLI for your client application.
It's the golden path for developing ember applications and using third party libraries. The gem Ember-rails still works and is still maintained, but you should not start a new project with it.
Keep them separate
It simply makes more sense to have them separate. This way, development and deployments of both apps are not tied to each other.
It uses more repositories though, and if you're using github, it may mean you'd have to switch plans. But there are other options such as bitbucket where the pricing is not tied to the number of private repositories
I hope this helps you.
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I see some old questions here and here
It is now 2014, and I also have a more specific question.
Another company has built a REST API. Now I want to build a web application that only needs controller and view. I was originally planning to build this with just PHP without the bloat of an MVC framework. Then I was thinking maybe doing it with ASP.NET with just simple code behind and .aspx approach (the non-MVC way). I was even considering using only JQuery and HTML. The reason I haven't really considered a full MVC framework is because I'm simply just sending data, getting data and printing data. I don't have to really implement business logic.
Right now I'm considering doing this in just the ruby language because it seems like such a clean and minimalist language. But is there any advantage to including the entire rails framework? If so, what features are worth considering in the rails framework for my purposes?
EDIT
It seems I got a close vote for opinion based. But I'm not looking for opinions. I'm looking for the advantages of rails framework for my purposes. In other words, what problems can the rails framework solve significantly faster than just using ruby+curl+print_line().
As example on how to answer the question objectively, you can state things like:
Scenario 1:
Rails makes CURL calls and displays in views like so.
Pure ruby make calls and outputs views like so.
Result: As can be seen, rails requires X fewer lines of code than pure ruby as it pertains to the OP's original question
Scenario 2:
Rails handles page caching like so.
Pure ruby page caching will need to be handled like so.
Result: As can be seen, rails require X fewer lines of code than pure ruby as it pertains to the OP's original question
By listing the problems the original rails authors hoped to achieve and solutions they hoped for us to utilize in the situation defined in the OP's original question, we can see quantitatively the advantages Rails has over pure ruby.
Rails is pretty big, and in my opinion you don't need the bloat of Rails for something this simple. Even though it's not an MVC framework, I would recommend something like Sinatra, especially since it doesn't force you to use a database at all. Sinatra is a very simple framework, and it's most useful when you just want a way to easily set up HTTP routing with basic view support. However, note that it is possible to create a model that doesn't use ActiveRecord with Rails.
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I'm a studying CS and lately I've got myself really enjoying learning about web development..
Now, I have tried to learn AngularJS for a few times but then I wanted to focus more on backend first, since I already know the stuff like html/css/js which makes good part of frontend so wanted to see what backend feels like..
So I started learning Rails.. Now, since with my previous attempts of trying to learn AngularJS I learned that it is all about MVC, sending data from one to another etc.. My problem is, at first glance at least, Rails seems to work in the really similar fashion. The question is, why would anyone want to use both AngularJS and Rails at the same time, when, at least in the newbie's eyes -> Rails seems that it can handle both backend and frontend? Like, views are our frontend, and we can use css/js in those .html.erb files, wouldn't that be considered frontend after all?
Now, I'm almost positive there is a good answer to this since googling "why use angular with rails" usually comes with results of tutorials that explain to you how to integrate them, I just want some reasons so that I wouldn't be as confused as right now..
Thanks!
Rails is a server-side framework that produces HTML, JSON, and JavaScript as well as manages CSS and image assets.
AngularJS is a client-side framework. Generally, without a server component it really can't do much.
By default Rails doesn't have a client-side framework. You can use EmberJS, Angular, or others to make your client-side interface more responsive and flexible. Rails alone can't do this, it can't run in your browser.
Likewise, AngularJS can't run on your server. You need to combine them.
MVC at frontend is a recent development. Earlier days we used to develop everything at backend and use frontend only for animation, UI etc.,
Slowly with Ajax introduction we started doing more at frontend and less at backend.
Now we migrated completely to frontend. We use backend only for logics which should be decided at server side and database management.
Single line answer, we need rails or any backend only to serve few logics which SHOULD happen in the backend, User can change the logic if it is at client side. So we force them to happen in the server side. And ofcourse database should be at the backend.
Other than that , there is absolutely no need to use rails views and others.
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I'm busy with the creation of a collaborative application, where 2 users may edit the same data at the same time, without doing a full refresh of the HTML page (it is a huge table, as an excel sheet).
What is the best option in Rails 4 I have to push the modification from a user A to a user B ?
The ultimate goal should be to get an auto-update table like the one in google spreadsheet ! :-)
I didn't find a recent (>2012) answer to this question... Is there a gem or a plugin that starts an automatic process on the server side ? How the manage the user subscriptions to udpates ?
You should definitely use the websocket-rails gem, I am personnaly using it for a debate website which I'm creating from scratch.
It is using, as the name refers, Websockets. This technology is being more and more used, and is now compatible with most of the browsers, it has indeed an excellent compatibility.
websocket-rails has a lot of documentation, I also had some trouble using it for advanced usage, and got my happiness contacting their devs directly on their irc channel, they are very nice.
For your need, I think that Websockets are much more convenient than Ajax, for for your need, Ajax needs to ask the server each x second if there's something new to refresh. That will exhaust your server, but when using Websockets, the server will send you directly the new data that you need. You can find more info for this choice on this SO answer.
It handles private channels, if the data exchanged need not to be public as well, websocket-rails is definitely the way to go !
You can find it's repository here.
I will try to answer your question as simple as I can:
End of last year I created a web app that needed too many interactions and live updating on the client side.
Basically like the Facebook Wall with notification and live updates.
I achieved this through using Private_Pub which is a Gem created based on Faye, by Ryan Bates, the author of RailstCasts
There are tutorials and examples of using this for live updates.
However I don't advice you to use this, because you will end up doing so much dirty hacks and patches just to make sure the service is running and make sure connections are not closed and such.
My advice would be using a front-end JS on top of Rails Stack.
You can using Angular,Ember, Backbone and Meteor, all of them help you achieve that functionality on a safer side of things.
Check out the RailsCasts for those Frameworks from Ryan Bates:
http://railscasts.com/episodes/408-ember-part-1
http://railscasts.com/episodes/351-a-look-at-meteor
http://railscasts.com/episodes/405-angularjs
http://railscasts.com/episodes/323-backbone-on-rails-part-1
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Is there any tool or framework in Node.js that allows you to create a table in the DB and generate RESTful APIs automatically like Rails?
Thanks a lot!
I guess it depends on what you want:
Rails style code generation (where it generates code for you that you can modify)
Django style semi magic where admin forms can be derived from the fields in your table/document schema.
you mean generating an API for these fields in the database, ala what grape does for Ruby -- you do some configuration and translating data to JSON and transmitting it back over the wire is taken care of for you
You have a new project and you're looking for a framework with one of these three characteristics
For the first three options there are a few related SO questions on this already:
Node.js Mongoosejs Crud scaffolding
Admin panel for Node.js and Mongoose
Is there a CRUD generator for Mongoose and Node.js and Underscore? Or a CRUD generator for a similar stack?
There are a few awesome answers in this set of links, including:
#jsalonen's answer gathering up some tools <-- mostly about generating admin UIs
#Dow's answer with some tools <-- he mentions RailwayJS (now CompoundJS), then points to some other SO questions/answers on this topic.
#bergie's answer about a module that exposes JugglingORM models as RESTful API routes automatically
Or, as #Andbdrew mentioned in the comments, there's node-restify
You could write your own generator - perhaps you could write a Cake task that would take a template file, execute some Javascript and output a view for your application. I started down this path recently myself. Certainly with the variety of technologies Node.js apps involve (different ORM choices, Javascript front ends, CSS layouts) this may make sense.
For the last option - an opinionated rapid web development Node.js framework that provides good API support, there are a few options:
#abject_error's answer, in this question, about Sails
Geddy <-- automatically provides .json versions of the data your controller specifies (depending on the request it uses this data to render HTML views or creates a JSON representation)
There's a nice slide-show on How to quickly make REST APIs with CompoundJS, so CompoundJs may fit your tastes.
I initially left these off as I assumed you may have an existing project, or didn't want to use an opinionated framework, but added them because why not.
SailsJS (https://github.com/balderdashy/sails) is exactly what you're looking for. It uses the Waterline module for simulating ActiveRecord. Just define a resource, and it will automatically create JSON endpoints for all RESTful actions, and also makes the endpoints compatible with Socket.io connections.
It's built on Express, so you can use any Connect middleware to extend it. AFAIK it's the best NodeJS framework for building API backends.
Defining a new resource is as simple as sails generate user. This will create the appropriate model and controller files, which you can then modify.
Keep in mind Sails was built with schema-less datastores in mind, so it's primary support is for MongoDB, not MySQL. I'm not sure how well (if at all) it supports SQL databases.