Ruby on Rails is actually not just a programming language, but rather a framework that consists of two parts: Ruby programming language and the Rails software library that extends its capabilities. Developed more than twenty years ago by Japanese software developer Yukihiro Matsumoto, Ruby still ranks as one of the top ten most popular programming languages. Ruby is a general purpose language. Rails, also known as Ruby on Rails, is a software library that extends the capabilities of Ruby programming language.
Rails was created in by David Heinemeier Hansson, when he grew disappointed with the more common languages like Java, which he thought was unnecessarily complicated, or PHP, which was full of repetitive code. Now, RoR is a framework for the creation of a wide variety of websites. It is used for creating server-side or back-end web applications, i. There are many useful gems for all sorts of situations available on the dedicated RubyGems website, and are easy to download and use.
And with the huge community Ruby on Rails has, new gems are appearing as fast as new issues in programming arise. An e-commerce platform for online stores, Shopify was created in as a solution for the problems with website development that many e-stores had faced.
Despite its large database, Shopify is successfully using Ruby on Rails. This is a website that allows developers from all across the globe to discuss and share their code. The place where Rails was born still claims the title of one of the best sites built with Ruby on Rails. When working on the Basecamp website fifteen years ago, a developer named David Heinemeier Hansson created what would later become one of the most used programming languages.
Today Basecamp is a popular project management tool based on the website of the same name. The dictionary of slang run by regular people, this project is yet another example of a famous Ruby on Rails web application. An invaluable service for anybody who travels a lot, the AirBnb website is run by the global company of the same name. It allows travelers to book a room in more than countries. This popular streaming service even went so far as to officially sponsor the RailsConf event back in Kickstarter , the website that redefined crowdfunding, and its current thousand successful projects were also made possible thanks to Ruby on Rails.
Groupon is a website that collects the best deals. It is used in 45 different countries and has more than 35 million registered users. This large business website has been using RoR since its founding a decade ago.
A useful website for anybody who likes to read, Goodreads gives its users the possibility to create reading lists and provides a platform for book discussions. A hosting system for documents and presentations, Slideshare managed to hit the 3 million viewers milestone in just three years after its initial launch.
Also known as IYP , this business telephone directory moved to the web almost a decade ago, but still remains among the top popular search terms.
A crowdfunding site with more than 9 million viewers per month, Indiegogo also runs on Ruby on Rails. Frameworks are built on top of programming languages to provide a structure — or a skeleton — for your web application. But why exactly do we, web app developers, use them in our projects? Frameworks save time by ensuring that your code is structured in an upgradable and maintainable way. Most web applications include lots of generic components that solve common problems. For instance, defining how you store objects in a database, rendering forms views, or providing an abstraction to a common messaging layer.
Frameworks offer solutions to common tasks like these out of the box, providing developers with high-quality code that can be used again and again. Frameworks also make projects easier to maintain and develop in the long term. When code follows a well-known structure like that provided by a framework , it is much easier to read the code, understand how it works, and improve it.
And the more mature and stable the framework, the easier it is to find developers who are ready to jump in and continue developing an existing project. Now that you know what we use frameworks for, let's come back to Ruby and PHP and take a quick look at the history of their Ruby on Rails and Symfony frameworks.
The first version of the Ruby on Rails framework was officially released in It was developed by David Heinemeier Hansson as a part of Basecamp, the project management tool. Providing default structures for web pages, databases, and web services, Ruby on Rails development quickly gained popularity.
And being an open source framework, Rails soon gathered a community of contributors who have been improving it rapidly. The second version was released in , and in Ruby on Rails 3.
Inspired by Ruby on Rails, the Symfony framework also follows the MVC architecture and speeds up development by relying on lots of PHP open source projects at its core. Symfony was initially introduced in by SensioLabs, a French development company.
This is why its first version was called Sensio Framework. Later the company made the project open source and called it Symfony. So he decided to do something about it.
So I decided to make it. Aside from being the code of RoR, Ruby is also a standalone language used to build web applications. Its next major release, v. Ruby on Rails has been a go-to language for many years. As a result, many sites have been developed with Rails under the hood, and developers have gone in many different directions with the language.
Twitter also ran on RoR in the early days but has rebuilt its platform ever since. For us at Railsware, RoR has been the go-to solution for many years. Here are several examples:. Calendly is a popular meeting scheduling app. The platform generates an individual link for your invitees to use to quickly schedule a meeting. The app integrates with your calendar and popular apps, such as Salesforce, PayPal, or Google Analytics. BrightBytes is a data analytics platform for the education sector.
Mailtrap lets its users set up a safe testing environment and capture all outgoing emails. Then, users can inspect and improve them without any risk of spamming real users. For more, check out our list of Ruby on Rails websites.
And yet, millions of developers still use it, and most are likely not going anywhere else. The most commonly used programming languages, as a percentage of those that took the Stack Overflow survey.
Why is that? But 16 years after its inception, we still use it for nearly every project, and over 1. The reason Rails became so popular, especially among startups, is its speed of development. You want to quickly ship a product, onboard the first users, and start iterating. Ruby on Rails was built with all of these needs in mind, and is arguably the top choice for startups launching their products.
New to Rails? Get the book Learn Ruby on Rails. Ruby is a programming language. By most measures of programming language popularity, Ruby ranks among the top ten , though usually as tenth or so in popularity, and largely due to the popularity of Rails.
Like Java or the C language, Ruby is a general-purpose programming language, though it is best known for its use in web programming. Rails is a software library that extends the Ruby programming language. David Heinemeier Hansson is its creator. It is software code that is added to the Ruby programming language.
Technically, it is a package library specifically, a RubyGem , that is installed using the operating system command-line interface. Rails is a framework for building websites.
As such, Rails establishes conventions for easier collaboration and maintenance. These conventions are codified as the Rails API the application programming interface , or directives that control the code. The Rails API is documented online and described in books, articles, and blog posts. Later, this article will describe web applications in greater depth and show why a web development framework is needed to build complex websites. Rails, in a larger sense, is more than a software library and an API.
Rails is the central project of a vast community that produces software libraries that simplify the task of building complex websites. Members of the Rails community share many core values, often use the same tools, and support each other with an informal network that is built on volunteerism.
Overlapping the informal community is an economic network that includes jobs, recruiters, consulting firms, conferences, businesses that build websites with Rails, and investors that fund startups. Read on for a more detailed look at Rails. He tried Ruby and was excited about the ease of use he calls it pleasure he found in the Ruby language. Compared to Java, Ruby is streamlined, with less code required to create basic structures such as data fields.
Ruby is a modern language that makes it easy to use high-level abstractions such as metaprogramming. RubyGems provides a simple system to install gems. Anyone can upload a gem to the central RubyGems website , making the gem immediately available for installation by anyone. And it is where you will obtain all the gems that help you build complex websites. Ruby has several disadvantages at least when programmers want to argue. The execution speed of a language is seldom important, though, relative to the benefits gained by programmer productivity and the general level of performance required by most websites.
If you are reading this because you want to learn Rails, you may want to know if you must learn the Ruby programming language before learning Rails. To avoid feeing overwhelmed when you first begin learning Rails, it is advisable to spend at least an hour with an introduction to Ruby so you are comfortable with the syntax of the language. You should be prepared to recognize correct formatting when you type Ruby code in your text editor.
You can find several good online tutorials listed on the Ruby and Rails resource page. Get started with a quick lesson from RubyMonk or Try Ruby. Be assured that you will indeed learn Ruby as you develop proficiency with Rails. Your hardest challenge will be to learn the names of the structures you see in code examples. This is why it is helpful to work your way through a short introduction to Ruby. You should recognize when you are looking at an iterator or the Ruby block syntax.
As experienced Rails developers, we hope you will make an effort to learn Ruby as you learn Rails. Spend time with a Ruby textbook or interactive course as you get more proficient with Rails. By all means, if you love the precision and order of programming languages, dive into the study of Ruby from the beginning. Rails is popular and widely used because its conventions are pervasive and astute. Any web application has complex requirements that include basic functions such as generating HTML , processing form submissions, or accessing a database.
Without a web application development framework, a programmer has a mammoth task to implement all the required infrastructure.
0コメント