[clue-announce] July meeting topic
Dennis J Perkins
dennisjperkins at comcast.net
Sun Jul 12 22:45:17 MDT 2009
RAILS
--------
Many presentations have been put together by Rails enthusiasts that
talk about how it is the only logical tool to solve all your website
problems. Enthusiasts from other languages point to some perceived
flaw in Ruby on Rails (usually accurate several versions ago, but not
any longer). The truth is that RoR is a terrific tool for a very
specific group of website types. When used correctly, it can provide
a web framework that is second to none. Despite what you have heard,
when used correctly, it will scale to Twitter-sized proportions.
As good as RoR is, it is definitely not the tool for all problems.
Along with all of Rails's advantages, we will discuss what Rails does
very poorly. RoR is not a tool to replace all the other tools in your
web toolbox, but instead is a powerful addition to the tools you
already use. Understanding RoR's limitations is just as important as
understanding its strength.
After a view of its strengths and weaknesses, we will get into
developing a basic address book application, starting with database
design. This will lead into a better understanding of one of the
web's newest and best technologies, ActiveRecord.
But a simple demo application is never all that useful in and of
itself. So, we will then modify this application to provide login
fields capable of being used with the SQL module for PAM, or on your
favorite website.
Next we will look at how the website you are building with RoR is very
well structured to allow multiple developers with different skill sets
to work together without getting in each others way. Data from the
program side is kept completely separate from the site navigation and
overall look and feel of the site. This allows programers to program,
and web designers to design, and work completely in harmony.
Finally, we will discuss how to extend your application so that you
can develop non-web applications that can fully work with our new
login system, providing a truly enterprise class application...
All in one hour
Kevin Fries is a Senior Linux Engineer at Computer and Communications
Technology, Inc.
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