Ruby On Rails [LWN.net]

Version 1.0 of Ruby on Rails (also known as Rails), a web development framework that uses the Ruby language, was announced this week. Rails uses a database back-end. "Rails 1.0 is mostly about making all the work we've been doing solid. So it's not packed with new features over 0.14.x, but has spit, polish, and long nights applied to iron out kinks and ensure that it works mostly right, most of the time, for most of the people." [Rails]

Rails is designed for achieving rapid productivity while maintaining programmer happiness, both of which are desirable goals. The project tutorials claim that it is possible to implement various high level web site features in just minutes.

Rails is a full-stack framework for developing database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Control pattern. From the Ajax in the view, to the request and response in the controller, to the domain model wrapping the database, Rails gives you a pure-Ruby development environment. To go live, all you need to add is a database and a web server.

Rails is a cross-platform project and it works with your choice of web servers, including Apache and lighttpd. Rails also offers a choice of databases, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird, as well as some proprietary choices.

There is a wide variety of Rails documentation available online, the API definition is a good place to go to view the inner workings of the project. The Rails screencasts section features a number of live tutorials examples on how to create useful web functionality in a short amount of time, and other conference presentations.

The Rails 1.0 announcement mentions the schedule for next release: "Rails 1.1 is already pretty far along in development and will see some of the biggest upgrades of any Rails release. Hopefully some time in February."

For further reading, take a look at the Wikipedia entry on Ruby and the humorous why's (poignant) guide to Ruby, which sets a new standard for programming language manuals.

If you are looking for a good excuse to learn Ruby, Rails could be the perfect motivator.

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