I’ve been considering some development with Ruby and Rails. As I’ve used the Netbeans IDE before and liked it, I downloaded the Ruby version to give it a try.

The main benefit here is that you can do a lot of things without the console. I can add models, scaffolds, migrate databases, and such with a few clicks.

The current default install doesn’t have the most current version of “JRuby” (that being ruby created with 100% Java) installed, so I opted to figure out how to update Netbeans with the most current interpreter.

Here is a quick list of things to do:
download the Ruby Netbeans IDE

Download latest version of JRuby

Install the new version to:
C:\Program Files\NetBeans 6.7.1\ruby2\
Depending on your install directory of Netbeans.

A directory will be created: jruby-1.4.0
Depending on the currently available version of JRuby.

In Netbeans, go to the platform manager in the menu “tools >> Ruby Platforms”: Select auto-detect platforms, or add a platform and browse to:
C:\Program Files\NetBeans 6.7.1\ruby2\jruby-1.4.0\bin\jruby.exe
This links the newly installed one with the IDE.

When creating your first project, one of the wizard steps will have a “install rails” button, click that and allow it to download and install rails for the new version of JRuby you just added. Currently that would be version 2.3.4.

Install the “activerecord-jdbcsqlite3-adapter” ruby gem through the menu item “tools >> ruby gems” if you are interested in using the sqlite database engine.
(in your database.yml file make development and test use… adapter: jdbcsqlite3 instead of sqlite3)

Change the server used to Webrick when creating a project, in one of the wizard steps (much much faster than that glassfish one) .

That’s about it to get started. I’ve started playing around with creating models and scaffolding, but I have yet to do anything worth while. I think I need to read up on the Ruby language itself to get the basic syntax down.

Edit:
I started reading and tinkering with some code for a few days.
I’m not too impressed with Ruby/Ruby on rails so far. It doesn’t seem any easier than any other language to use. It seems more like jumping through predefined hoops to get anywhere. It has some great ideas in it like parts of the data model and the ruby syntax itself. I might give it a try again sometime, but for now it is likely I will try a PHP/framework combo instead.

Over the past week or two I’ve been researching ways to develop server-side web based applications as fast as possible (time is money, haha). I am in the initial stages of starting a little side business with a friend and one of our possible clients is looking for a large system to handle online ordering of their products. If you know anything about developing and programming a complex system, it takes a lot of planning as well as a good deal of time to actually create it. My “developer ideals” won’t allow my to create something of poor quality, so I’ve been reluctant to take on large things in the past. I’ve been pushing myself more lately to produce results the results I strive for with more speed. Well more like I’ve been trying to learn new methods and techniques where I can keep my quality level high, but just get things done faster.

While I’ve programmed in PHP before, I know that I would need to create a large amount of generic functionality to handle an ordering system. This would include the front end where the customer places orders as well as the back end where the company processes the order, allows for product creation/update/deleting and whatever else.

I’m not really going to do much with that order system right now, because it is only a possibility for us. What I need to do is find a tool that provides the best method of implementing server-side web based applications. My requirements at this time are free, reliable output, ease of use, and speed of implementation.

I’ve looked at Visual Web Developer 2005 Express with MySQL. The problem as I mentioned in a previous post is that to use the .net 2.0 pre-made functionality I have to use an unproven user made library. Not something I want to do.

Over the past two days I was researching Ruby On Rails. It looks interesting and should have a good deal of support in the future, but at least to me doesn’t seem like it would be something I would want to use to code a client’s application. At least not until I learn a lot more about it.

A few minutes ago I found Symfony. It’s a framework based on PHP5 and is said to be of “clean design and code readability.” So now I will be looking into that. If it’s true this might be what I am looking for. If not I may just get started on designing/creating my own generic framework.

I started playing around with Visual Web Developer Express 2005 (VWD). I had originally planned on using VWD with MySQL. The problem is that to use the new stuff in ASP.NET 2.0 like the pre-made authentication you have to use Microsoft’s own SQL server, or try to get some convoluted method of making MySQL work as the provider. I’m sure that I could eventually get it working, but in the end it would not provide me the free easy to use fast development solution I was looking for in asp.net and MySQL. I had a plan to develop a dynamic small business website with user authentication, but I see now that it probably won’t be with VWD Express and MySQL. If I have to reinvent the wheel for everything I’d rather just use PHP and MySQL.

That being said, I still plan on messing around with VWD and Microsoft’s SQL Express.

I might be doing some research about Ruby On Rails to see if that would better meet my needs.

Using VWD and MySQL link