11/4/11, Framework

At this point, we should assume that everyone has RAILS up and running on their computers. And for some if not all, you’re flying through the Railsguide.org and surpassing the class schedule…

I would like to take some time to try to really understand RAILS advantages and disadvantages by sort of dissecting the Chapter: What is RAILS.

Let us look at the first definition of Ruby on Rails in the Railsguide.org website:

“Rails is a web application development framework written in the Ruby language.”

The keyword is framework and according to Wikipedia, the definition for this is as follows:

A web application framework is a software framework that is designed to support the development of dynamic websites, web applications and web services. The framework aims to alleviate the overhead associated with common activities performed in Web development. For example, many frameworks provide libraries for database access, templating frameworks and session management, and they often promote code reuse.^[1]

So with this in mind, not only do you have to learn how this type of system works, you must also understand the programming language, Ruby, which is an Object Oriented Programming Language in order to use Ruby on Rails.

Seems a little intimidating, but with anything new to learn – we are all intimidated by some degree. I can’t wait to take advantage of learning all this further!

Let’s move on with Railsguide.org website description of RAILS.

“It is designed to make programming web applications easier by making assumptions about what every developer needs to get started. It allows you to write less code while accomplishing more than many other languages and frameworks. Experienced Rails developers also report that it makes web application development more fun.”

Sounds familiar… pretty close to Wikipedia’s definition, and I must say that I am definitely looking to have some fun!

Next, we will look into Model, View and Controller (MVC).