what is Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails is an open source web development framework, which provides a scalable way to quickly build database-driven web applications with high quality. Rails codes includes five default packages: ActiveRecord, ActiveResource, ActionPack, ActiveSupport and ActionMailer , and can be extended with plugins built by the communities and Rails lovers. The RESTful scaffold or the Rails framework, which provides the skeleton for the models and views needed for a basic website, is developed to the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture, and other web development frameworks learned a lot from this brilliant architecture.

There are two main thoughts in Ruby on Rails--Convention over Configuration (CoC) and Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY). The principle behind CoC is that only unconventional aspects of the application need to be specified; otherwise, they follow the established standard. This principle simplified the configuration work really a lot, it helps to concentrate not on the insignificant settings, but on the specification of the work. DRY requires that information should be placed in a single, unambiguous location to ensure a single point of reference and avoid hidden errors.

The building blocks and principles behind Ruby on Rails allow for tremendous development speed while minimizing code lines and errors. Rails development takes the advantage of decades of web development experiences, it knows deeply how a web application's structure should be, and that makes it really simple to use, maintain, and extend. Through our client deployments, and projects of other communities or Rails development teams, Ruby on Rails has been proven an extremely powerful and scalable web development framework capable of handling millions of transactions and page views per day.

David Heinemeier Hansson created Ruby on Rails while developing Basecamp, a project management tool from 37signals. He released Rails to the public in July 2004. Ruby on Rails is now rated as a great tool to rapidly build scalable, database-driven web applications. In October 2007, Apple added their endorsement to the movement by building Ruby on Rails in Mac OS X Leopard.

Why Ruby on Rails

  • Ruby on Rails is an open-source web application development framework, it emphasize Agile and high-quality development.
  • Model-View-Controller frame of Rails becomes a widely accepted web development structure. It is smart and effective. Traditional web development is learning the soul of Rails and Agile.
  • RoR advocate effective elegant code and easier configuration with great quality, stability, scalability and security. The famous twitter is built with Rails.
  • RoR will shorten the development time, relatively software engineers pay more attention and energy than of traditional web development on functions and qualities. Thus the development cost is obviously cut down while the code quality get better.