I get a lot of emails about packing and distributing Rails applications with Tar2RubyScript and RubyScript2Exe. It obviously wasn't easy to come up with the steps that have to be taken to transform a Rails application into a standalone application. Since I never built a Rails application myself, I wasn't even sure if it was possible at all. That's why I decided to write this tutorial.
Ruby? Rails? Ajax? Is this cluster of confusing buzzwords swarming around your head like a mob of angry bees? Then fear not, gentle padawan -- Jedi help is at hand! For I, too, was just like you once: confused, jumping at shadows, sinking into the depths of yet another custom Python web framework while softly weeping behind a stack of dog-eared PHP books. But not anymore. Today I build my applications in Ruby on Rails.
In this tutorial I am going to assume a few things that require that you be familiar with the technology used. This tutorial is not intended to be a lesson on the Ruby language but on how to get started by setting up both a working development and production environment. Once you get your set up going you can go on to other articles covering how to do some useful applications in Ruby.
Ruby on Rails is a recent entry into the world of Web application development that is rapidly gaining mindshare, even while still in beta versions. Rails succeeds by automating the creation of the most common types of Web applications while not straightjacketing you if you want to add custom or atypical requirements. Moreover, compared to many Free Software libraries that perform individual aspects of a Web application, Rails contains a nicely integrated set of tools for all aspects.
Ruby DBI is not a true connection layer. Many install it thinking that it will help them connect to their MySQL database and then they find that nothing works. Ruby DBI is an abstration layer or so called "wrapper" class that filters multiple differences in database code into a single interface. So if a Oracle database, MySQL and PostGreSQL all have different syntax for selecting a database row it will not matter in your code. In your code the selection of a row will be the same for all three.
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