Ruby on Rails Windows Installation

WHY RUBY ON RAILS?

Many platforms are available for Web development including Microsoft’s .NET, Java 2 Enterprise Edition, and PHP. Why, then, is there so much interest in a new platform using a relatively unfamiliar language? 

By its design, Ruby on Rails (RoR) lets you develop Web applications very quickly. It does this by adhering to conventions rather than forcing you to make all of your configuration decisions upfront. As a result, RoR lets you develop running applications in a surprisingly short length of time. Once you install Ruby and its various required packages, you can create a minimal Web application by running less than a half-dozen commands and editing one file (database.yml). RoR includes code generators or libraries that address many of the most common Web development tasks. The Ruby language has the object-oriented capabilities of a language like Java, yet you can also use it to create simple scripts. The language’s range of capabilities increases your ability to create applications without having to resort to numerous divergent technologies.

DEFINITIONS

What is Ruby?

Ruby is an object-oriented interpreted scripting language created by Yukihiro Matsumoto. Since the mid-1990s, it has grown in popularity in Japan and has gained recent attention as the language behind the Rails framework. You can use the language for a striking variety of functions—from basic scripting to creating Windows applications to developing Web applications. You can start using Rails without extensive knowledge of the language; the Rails framework generates the fundamental classes needed for the Web application and uses reflection to perform object-relational mapping to the database.

What is Rails?

Rails is a Web application and persistence framework created by David Heinemeier Hansson. It includes the infrastructure you need to create database-backed Web applications that use the Model-View-Control (MVC) pattern. Rails has gained attention as a development framework that lets you rapidly create full-featured database-backed Web applications.

What is the Model-View-Controller Pattern (MVC)?

The MVC design pattern is used to separate the following concerns of an application:

Model:	Application data, including validation rules
View:	The way data is presented to the end user
Controller:	The way a user manipulates the data within the model

This pattern has become popular for Web application development, but it has existed for much longer. Implementations of the pattern have been refined over time and products have been developed to implement it as a framework. You can use Java projects such as Struts and Hibernate to develop applications that leverage the MVC architecture. 

In the Rails framework, Active Record deals with Model concerns. It maps database tables to Ruby objects and provides many other features, including a way to easily access data, represent and traverse relationships between tables, validate data, and get data summaries. It also lets you use straight SQL when desired.

The Action Controller coordinates interactions between the View and Model layers (letting users change data through the Web). It routes all requests sent to the Web application, provides a filtering mechanism, Web session access, and other features.

The Action View deals with what’s actually displayed to the user (generally in the Web browser). Files that contain HTML and Ruby code are appended with an .rhtml extension. Helper classes are also available to provide data formatting.

What is Ruby Gems?

Ruby Gems (or simply gems) is the Ruby packaging system used to package Rails components. It provides a standard format for distributing Ruby programs and libraries as well as a tool for managing package installation.

What is OCI8?

The Ruby/Oracle Call Interface (OCI8) is a database driver for Ruby/DBI. RubyDBI provides a database-independent interface for Ruby. You install OCI8 to provide a Ruby interface to the underlying Oracle client software. It’s somewhat analogous to ODBC or JDBC.

                                          Rails Installation on Windows

Follow the steps given below for installing Ruby on Rails.

Check Ruby Version

First, check if you already have Ruby installed. Open the command prompt and type ruby -v. If Ruby responds, and if it shows a version number at or above 2.2.3, then type gem --version. If you don't get an error, skip Install Ruby step. Otherwise, we'll install a fresh Ruby.

Install Ruby

If Ruby is not installed, then download an installation package http://rubyinstaller.org/downloads/archives . Follow the download link, and run the resulting installer. This is an exe file rubyinstaller-2.2.3.x.exe and will be installed in a single click. It's a very small package, and you'll get Ruby Gems as well along with this package. Please check the Release Notes for more detail .And also download development kit and extract to same folder.

Install Rails

Install Rails − With Ruby gems loaded, you can install all of Rails and its dependencies using the following command through the command line 

C:\>gem install rails

Note − the above command may take some time to install all dependencies. Make sure you are connected to the internet while installing gems dependencies.

Check Rails Version

Use the following command to check the rails version.

C:\>rails -v

Congratulations! You are now on Rails over Windows.

Note: - Development kit after downloading extracted files placed into Ruby folder

DevKit Overview

The DevKit is a toolkit that makes it easy to build and use native C/C++ extensions such as Rediscount and Red Cloth for Ruby on Windows.

Simply download, double-click, choose an installation directory, run the Ruby install helper script, possibly tweak a config.yml file for your system specifics, and you’re ready to start using native Ruby extensions.

Quick Start

Download it, run it to extract it somewhere (permanent).

Then cd to it, run ruby dk.rb init   and   ruby dk.rb install to bind it to ruby installations in your path.

Test Installation

Confirm your Ruby environment is correctly using the DevKit by running.

C:\>gem install json --platform=ruby

JSON should install correctly and you should see with native extensions in the screen messages.

Keeping Rails Up-to-Date

Assuming you have installed Rails using Ruby Gems, keeping it up-to-date is relatively easy. We can use the same command in both Windows and Linux platform. Use the following command 

C:\> gem update rails

This will automatically update your Rails installation. The next time you restart your application, it will pick up this latest version of Rails. While using this command, make sure you are connected to the internet.

Installation Verification

You can verify if everything is set up according to your requirements or not. Use the following command to create a demo project.

C:\>rails new demo

It will generate a demo rail project; we will discuss about it later. Currently we have to check if the environment is set up or not. Next, use the following command to run WE Brick web server on your machine.

C:\>cd demo

C:\> rails server

It will generate auto-code to start the server

Now open your browser and type the following 

http://localhost:3000

It should display a message, something like, "Welcome aboard" or "Congratulations".