Ruby on Rails is a web application framework created in 2004 and extracted from the authors' work on Basecamp. It is a full-stack framework that provides default structures and tools for database access, templating, routing and more. The framework emphasizes conventions over configuration and follows patterns like MVC and REST to provide a pragmatic approach to building web applications. Testing and agile development practices are also core to how Rails applications are built.

1. Modern
webdevelopment
with
Ruby on Rails
Robert Glaser
Software Developer at Planetactive

2. Me
• Studied at Fontys Venlo
• 26 years
• Software Developer at Planetactive - an
Ogilvy Company in Düsseldorf
twitter.com/mrreynolds

3. Planetactive
• Ogilvy / WPP worldwide agency group
• Full service digital marketing agency

4. So...

5. Modern?
• What exactly does „modern“ mean?
• „Modern“ is a very subjective and
opinionated term
• So is Ruby on Rails!

6. • Created in 2004 by David Heinemeier
Hansson (DHH) at 37signals
• Extracted from Basecamp
(basecamphq.com)
• Based on pragmatic solutions for common
problems
• Opinionated software
• DRY - Don‘t Repeat Yourself

7. Wait.
There are hundreds of MVC web
frameworks!

8. „It‘s a very pragmatic,
very targeted framework
with a strong sense of direction.
You might not share it‘s vision,
but it undeniably has one.“
DHH
photo copyright by James Duncan Davidson

9. Rails is „full stack“...
• ActiveRecord (ORM)
• ActionPack (ActionController, ActionView)
• ActiveSupport (Class Extensions, Helpers)
• ActionMailer
• ActiveResource (REST Mapper)
• Rails (Core Lib)

10. ...with many ingredients
• Instant start defaults • Strong REST support
• Webserver • Session Handling
• Logger • Middleware (Rack)
• Staging • Test Framework
• AJAX • Plugins
• Webservices • Engines
• Mail • Clean MVC
architecture
• Debugger
• Scaffolding
• Caching

11. ORM
• Database abstraction & persistance ORM
• ActiveRecord also a pattern
• Migrations for incremental schema
management

12. YEAH!
I don‘t have to write
SQL!!!

13. Yes, but you should
understand what you
are doing.

14. Convention over
configuration
• File naming conventions and assumptions
• DB naming conventions for databases,
tables, primary- and foreign keys
• Pluralization and singularization through
String inflectors
• Per-Environment configuration files

15. DRY - Don‘t Repeat
Yourself
• Table column names don‘t need to be
manually defined => read from DB
• Reusing code (e.g. in views via partials)
• Metaprogramming
• DSLs

16. Model
• Business logic
• Data persistence
• ActiveRecord

17. View
• Data presentation
• User Interaction
• Template language ERB (Embedded Ruby)
• ActionView

18. Controller
• Event handling
• Operation on models
• Redirection and rendering
• ActionController

19. ActionController
ActiveRecord ActionView

20. ActiveRecord
• Conventions (pluralized table names, ...)
• Dynamic getters and setters
• SQL mostly unnecessary
• Entity relations (1:1, 1:n, n:n)
• SQL injection protection
• Validators
• Callbacks

21. ActionView
• ERB (Embedded Ruby)
• Javascript generators (AJAX)
• XML templates
• Reusing template elements via partials and
layouts

22. ActionController
• Actions are public controller methods
• Automatic template rendering
• Multiple formats can easily be supported
• RESTful model representations
• Callbacks
• Complete routing system
• Security (CSRF, IP spoofing, etc.)

23. REST
• Representational State Transfer
• Representation of resources with only
HTTP
• Actions on resources defined by HTTP
methods
• Stateless
• No additional transport layer like SOAP

24. REST

25. Testing
• Test environment & database
• Fixtures or Factories, depending on you
• Unit tests for models
• Functional tests for controllers
• Integration tests for workflow
• Automated browser tests via Selenium

26. Made for agile!
• Test driven development encouraged
• It‘s hard not to test
• Coverage testing via rcov
• Behaviour driven development with Rspec,
Cucumber or Shoulda (Stories and
contexts)
• Iterative DB schema evolvement via
migrations

27. Libraries, libraries!!
• Plugins
• Ruby Gems (Ruby‘s package management
system)

28. So, what is Ruby?

29. Ruby
• Released 1995 in Japan
• Created by Yukihiro Matsumoto
„Matz“
• Ruby should feel „natural, not
simple“
• Ruby should be „more powerful
than perl, more object-oriented
than python“

30. Everything is an object!

31. True open classes!

32. Loops

33. Loops

34. Classes, objects, loops,
iterators

35. Symbols

36. Symbols

37. Classes & modules

38. Mixins

39. Mixins

40. Metaprogramming

41. Exceptions

42. If you want to use Ruby,
use it idiomaticly!

43. Demo time!

44. Fin!
• Diploma thesis?
• Practical semester?
• Get in touch with me!