railsapps.github.io/talk-what-is-ror

for this slideshow

About the book

• best book for beginners
• available on Amazon
• part of the Capstone Rails Tutorial Series
• download at learn-rails.com/students

Daniel Kehoe

• building the web since 1991 (Tim Berner-Lee's www-talk forum)
• open source developer: example applications
• open source developer: Rails Composer

Digital Economy in South Africa

• solving the Internet "last mile" problem: coworking spaces
• solving the knowledge "last mile" problem: self-education

We'll talk about:

• What is Ruby on Rails?
• Why use Ruby on Rails?
• Compare Ruby on Rails to other platforms
• Making money with Ruby on Rails

Web application development

• static websites (HTML)
• web applications (databases and programming)
• mobile apps (iOS and Objective C, Android and Java)
• desktop apps

Web application development platforms

• C? no
• PHP/Symfony
• Java/Struts
• C++/.Net
• Python/Django
• Ruby/Rails
• JavaScript/Ember

Who, When, Where

• DHH (David Heinemeier Hansson)
• 2004
• 37 Signals, a design firm in Chicago

Base Camp 2005

• PHP or Java?
• PHP: messy
• Java: cumbersome
• DHH writes Rails in Ruby and builds in testing

Why Ruby?

• PHP: lack of abstraction, too much repetitive code, unstructured
• Java: too much ceremony, too much configuration
• Ruby: metaprogramming for a "domain specific language" (DSL)
• Ruby: elegant and pleasurable
• Ruby: "package libraries" (RubyGems)

Ruby Drawbacks

• Slow
• Poor parallel processing

Rails Virtues

• opinionated and omakase ("the chef chooses")
• convention over configuration
• DRY ("Don’t Repeat Yourself")

Rails Drawbacks

• sometimes Rails has no opinion
• omakase but "substitutions are allowed"
• conventions = magic
• DRY = obscure

What is Rails?

• a "software package library" (RubyGem) for Ruby
• an API ("application programming interface")
• an open source community
• an economic community (marketplace)

Six Blind Men and an Elephant

• Web Browser
• Coder
• Software Architect
• Time Traveler
• Gem Hunter
• Tester

Web Browser's Perspective

• HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files
• generated by a Rails application

Coder's Perspective

• folders
• files
• specific and standard structure

Software Architect's Perspective

• software design patterns
• model–view–controller
• Rails API

Time Traveler's Perspective

• version control system (Git)
• GitHub (collaboration)

Gem Hunter's Perspective

• Gemfile
• gems for... everything
• gems for code reuse

Tester's Perspective

• Test Driven Development (TDD)
• test first
• test always

Why Ruby on Rails for startups?

• conventions mean Rails developers get started quickly
• gems mean much code is already written
• testing enforces code quality

Making money with Ruby on Rails

• learn to code, build your MVP, launch a business
• learn to code, change your career, earn more money
• learn to code, start freelancing or join a consulting firm

Next steps

• weekend accelerator training (1095 R)
• download the book ‘Learn Ruby on Rails’
• build applications!