Tag: Ruby programming language

Everything You Need To Know About Ruby On Rails

Posted on by Jay

Ruby on Rails has been the most popular open-source web application framework. It is developed with Ruby programming Language.

By using Ruby on Rails you can build applications, from simple one to a complex one, there are no limits to what can be achieved with Rails.

Ruby on Rails is improving and becoming popular amongst many popular technical communities as well as being implemented by Startup’s to Giants to build up their applications.

Ruby on Rails

 What is Ruby On Rails?

Ruby on Rails, is a web development framework, which provides the rails developers a method to save their time for writing code. Rails is one among the many web frameworks in app programming and web development.

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It  is a JavaScript framework, meaning all of the coding libraries it contains will be written in JavaScript), and the Rails framework, Sokolyk says, is simply a web framework written on top of the Ruby programming language (more on Ruby below).

These frameworks are the collection of code libraries that provides the app and web developers some ready-made solutions that help in saving their time and avoid repetitive tasks such as developing forms, tables and menus pon the website. 

In simple words, rather than writing each line of code in a program from the beginning, the web developers can use these frameworks and find the code for all the common functions that they will plug into the websites or applications that are developed by them. The ruby on rails web framework is mostly specific to a particular programming language.

 What Is A Single Page Application?

Single page application (SPA) is a website or an application which shows all information in a single page with dynamic actions, with an objective to provide great user experience to visitors and end users.

Ruby improves the performance of applications by reducing the loading time of HTML, CSS and JS files and that helps the end users to take more advantage of the app plus allows them to use it to the fullest.

There is huge demand of SPA and webmasters are moving their sophisticated and complex web applications from classic web architecture (CWA) to a single-page application (SPA). This will actually change the way people manage business with these applications.

Let me tell you the key differences between SPA and CWA,

First client request

    • CWA: The server returns a full HTML page
    • SPA: The server returns a set of templates and data which is then rendered to the full HTML page, by JavaScript, on the client side.

Subsequent requests

    • CWA: The server returns a full HTML page
    • SPA: The server returns only the data needed to display the request. Since all templates are already on the client side from the first request, no HTML/CSS/JS should be delivered.

(Source: railsadventures.wordpress.com)

Application developer can use various technologies to build SPA but with my experience I will prefer to go with Ruby on Rails as this is one of the useful frameworks to build single page application.

“Rails can easily serve HTML to web browsers and JSON to API requests from the same controller action, making it possible to power SPI web apps today right out of the box. The asset pipeline and Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) handling are a huge boon to developers that just want to build cool apps without a ton of yak shaving to get started.”

Pete Forde, Co-Founder of Unspace

 

At one point of time this questions came to my mind and I am sure it must be coming to you too – that, “How Rails help to develop and maintain applications, is it easier and robust?”

Well, by the time you reach to the end of this article, this question will be clear and answered.

Before moving your app to SPA you must know about the good and bad part of Ruby on Rails. The objective of this article is to let you know some of the most important-awesomest features Ruby on Rails nurses and bad parts while planning to build SPA with Rails.

Ruby on Rails web development framework is built with top Ruby Programming Language and it’s completely free as Opensource and runs in Linux server.

Lets Starts With The Good Part

  • The assets in Rails terminology handles static resources and integrates with Webpack.
  • Default safe HTTP headers and CSRF protection.
  • Default SQL injection protection with bundled ActiveRecord.
  • Traditional website optimizations through Turbolinks.
  • Default separate configuration for each environment like development, production and testing.
  • Jobs, e-mail integration and integrated database migrations.
  • Automatic and high capabilities to code reloading in the development environment.
  • Quick booting can be made possible compared to other frameworks.
  • Quick and massive community support of your questions.
  • Huge numbers of gems are available in community and for all kind of tasks.
  • Heavy security with specialized experts, quick solutions of issues and quick new releases made possible for leaks.
  • Quick solution of Github issues.
  • Huge numbers of generators, models, controllers including test are available.
  • Performance-related data are high in the application’s logs.
  • highly configurable, easy websockets API through ActionCable and flexible routing made possible
  • bundles with test runners solutions for both Ruby-land tests and full-feature tests through Capybara (it still lacks an integrated bundled JavaScript test runner though)

Let’s Look At The Bad Parts:

  • The individual part can’t be upgraded by RoR App developers and you will get actionable support by upgrading the framework.
  • It’s very difficult to follow code base at the time of debugging edge cases and the tasks debugging weird issues estimation also became very hard.
  • Lack of active support at the time of implicit auto loading and their problems. Full action_view is must require even if you only need action_view/helpers/number_helper.
  • Automatic or transparent params binding.
  • Its slow to boot as compared to other Ruby frameworks, spring is not perfect and shouldn’t be required in the first place.
  • At the time of individual test, the test load time increases.
  • The API documentation is incomplete and takes more time to look into, exclusively in all parts of the API.
  • Boot process and requests cycle are not clearly understandable.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

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Winding Up…

Ruby on Rails is indeed a great framework to develop any type of web application and SPA. It’s very important to think how your application is and how that is performing with the end users.

No doubt you can develop single page application with Ruby on Rails in the easiest possible manner.

For a user-friendly Ruby on Rails single page application you need to gather some information like understanding the database, HTTP verbs and RESTful styles, use of Heroku or Engine Yard.

Do not get bogged down with the bad points listed above – the reason is, it’s very important to know the weaknesses (and I am sure the updated versions will be removing these loopholes gradually).

So start building wise.

Hope I have shared enough information about Ruby on Rails for single page application development. Share your thoughts with comments below, if anything I have missed out or if you think should be part of this article. Will be happy to add in.

Are you planning to build your Ruby on rails application, then we will be happy to help you. Contact us to develop your Ruby application today and enjoy all it’s features.

5 Reasons Why Web Development is Faster With Ruby On Rails

Posted on by Jay

Ruby on Rails aka “RoR” is an open-source MVC framework built using the Ruby programming language.

It is considered as the epitome of the latest generation of high-productivity, open source web development tool. The growing demand for Ruby on Rails has been driven by successful RoR development companies like Andolasoft, who benefit from the speed and agility of building applications in Rails, which results in increased productivity and company growth.

1. Framework Built on Agile Methodology

RoR is faster because the framework was built based on Agile development methodology, best practices are emulated so web development is done with high quality and speed.

RoR framework includes support programs, compilers, code libraries, tool sets, and application programming interfaces (APIs) that bring together the different components to enable development of a project or solution.

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It’s possible to build sites that used to take 12 weeks in just 6 weeks using Ruby on Rails. It means you can save 50% on your development expenses.

2. Less Code Writing

Rails creates a skeleton for an application or module by executing all the code libraries. You must write some commands to accomplish this. This is what makes the process of web development faster.

Rails makes database deployments simpler than any open, or proprietary solution by allowing for migrations.

  • Adopting principle of DRY

    It also adopts the principle of “Don’t Repeat Yourself”. So all information can be retrieved from a single unambiguous database which tends to easier development.

  • Easy Configuration

    A key principle of Ruby on Rails development is convention over configuration. This means that the programmer does not have to spend a lot of time configuring files in order to get setup, Rails comes with a set of conventions which help speeding up development.

  • Modular Design

    Ruby code is very readable and mostly self-documenting. This increases productivity, as there is little need to write out separate documentation, making it easier for other developers to pick up existing projects.

  • Designer Friendly Templates

    HTML templates is a core feature of Rails. It allow templates to be composed of a base template that defines the overall layout of the page,the base template is called a “layout” while the individual page templates are “views”. The Rails application retrieves the list of tags from the database and makes it available to the view.The section of the view that renders these category is:

    <%= render :partial => 'category' %>

    This refers to a Ruby partial, a fragment of a page, which is contained in _category.html.erb. That file’s content is:

<h3>categories</h3>
<p class="categorylist">
<%= render :partial => 'categorylist', :collection => @category %>
</p>
  • This generates the heading then refers to another partial, which will be used once for each object in the collection named “categorylist”.

3. Third Party Plugin/Gem Support

Mature plugin architecture, well used by the growing community. Rails plugins allows developer to extend or override nearly any part of the Rails framework, and share these modifications with others in an encapsulated and reusable manner.

Rails community provides a wealth of plugins as Ruby Gems that you simply add to your project Gem-file and install. This significantly accelerates development and maintenance time as you’re not trying to integrate disparate libraries, it’s already done for you.

4. Automated Testing

Rails has developed a strong focus on testing, and has good testing suit in-built within the frameworks.

Rails makes it super easy to write your tests. It starts by producing skeleton test code while you are creating your models and controllers.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

LEARN MORE

Rails ships with a built-in test suite. There are many tools available in the market for testing Rails application as mentioned below with other web apps from many different aspects.

  • Rspec
  • Cucumber
  • Test Unit
  • Shoulda
  • Selenium (not really a ruby thing but more of a web thing)

But if you are new to testing we highly recommend you start with learning Rails own testing suite before start using other tools

5. Easier Maintenance

Once site launches, future modifications to your site (e.g., adding new features, making changes to the data model) can be made more quickly, for the same reasons noted above.
New features can be added quickly and maintaining applications over time can also be more cost-effective.

If you like this one, you might also like Why Rails framework popular among Ruby developers and The Best practices for Rails App Development .

Why Rails Framework is Popular Among Ruby Developers?

Posted on by Netrananda M

Most companies whether it’s a start-up or an established enterprise have evidently landed to the conclusion that Ruby on Rails is the most viable option for rapid and cost efficient web app development.

Ruby on Rails or simply called ‘Rails’ is an open-source, full-scale multilevel web app framework that implements MVC development architecture for the Ruby programming language and is supported by a strong community around it.

Several reasons lie to use Ruby on rails, the main one is that it is a better choice than any other tools. However, before proceed forward let’s have a quick look on:

What Is Ruby On Rails?

Ruby is a dynamic, general purpose, interpreted language used for object oriented programming. The Framework has simple coding that a non-technical person can understand to some extent.

Developing new software using Ruby seems to be bit tedious. Rails, a special tool, was developed to optimize the development process.

Rails is the web development framework which is written in the Ruby language. After 9 years of development, Ruby was introduced.

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With this development the ruby on rails developers can easily makes the web app programming.

Ruby on Rails(Source: Clariontech)

Let’s take a quick look on the features of ROR:

Mature Framework

Ruby on Rails was first released in 2003, which possessed several large and actively maintained APIs that make application development faster, easier and more manageable. One of the best examples is CSRF (Cross Site Request Forgery) protection; using which, you don’t have to do anything to add CSRF. Active Record is an extremely powerful feature in terms of building usable data models.

MVC Architecture:

With Ruby on Rails development is based on the model, controller and view pattern, widely used web application architecture. Therefore, developers using other MVC framework languages can find Ruby on Rails to be more user-friendly.

By using Ruby on Rails architecture, you can get separate codes for different functions, i.e. data layer, presentation layer, and can maintain a resource layer.

Generators/Scaffolding:

It’s a rapid prototyping tool; Rails’ scaffold will generate a starting point that allows us to list, add, remove, edit, and view things. It will explain the command, the model name and related database table, naming conventions, attributes and types.

The generated script will produce files of Ruby code that the application can use to interact with the database. It is somewhat less convenient than dynamic scaffolding, but gives the programmer the flexibility of modifying and customizing the generated APIs.

Gems/Plugin:

Ruby gems are highly portable chunks of Ruby code that can be used inside any Ruby script or application.

Rails plugins have the flexibility to hook into every part of Rails, including generators, rake tasks and tests/specs. Rails-specific features cannot be used with other Ruby frameworks like Merb, Sinatra, etc.

Active Record ORM:

Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) is a technique that connects the rich objects of an application to tables in a relational database management system.

Active record pattern is an architectural pattern found in Ruby on Rails that stores its data in relational databases. It relies heavily on the naming in that it uses class and association names to establish mappings between respective database tables and foreign key columns.

Integrated Testing Tools:

Rails features a convenient testing tool, for which, it automatically starts producing the skeleton test code in background whilst you are creating the application models and controllers.

Rails tests can also simulate browser requests and thus you can test your application’s response without having to test it over the browser.

Some convenient tools for testing Rails application:

  • Test Unit
  • RSpec
  • Cucumber
  • Mocha
  • Flexmock
  • Factory Girl

Version Control Systems:

There are numerous version control systems. CVS was the first system widely used in the open-source community. Several years ago, it was largely replaced by Subversion (SVN). And in early 2008, most of the Rails world moved to a newer version control system, called GIT.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

LEARN MORE

Git is usually the best choice if you are new to Ruby, because nearly all code that you need to fetch as examples or libraries will be available via a GIT repository.

Conclusion

With Ruby on Rails providing a programming framework that includes reusable, easily configurable components commonly used for creating web-based applications, it is gaining traction with developers.

From the recent studies on the job growth trends, it is seen that Ruby on Rails developers are a very hot commodity. Ruby as the language of the cloud, the job market will continue to show high demand for the developers. It’s nearly impossible to be an unemployed Ruby on Rails developer.

RoR_graph_new1-1024x532 (1)

If you are in search of a dedicated developer, to create your ruby application, then contact us.

Our dedicated ruby developers will deliver a quick and efficient solution by developing a web application of your requirement.

Top Reasons To Bring RoR Development On Board

Posted on by Jay

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Rails is an innovation in development framework.  It encompasses all the necessary elements to boost a web application’s performance. This framework is designed to address agile development and deliver productivity as well as flexibility to RoR developers. Developed using Ruby programming language, it has transformed the world of web development through its practical approach.

Ruby on Rails is built upon two programming philosophies

  • “Convention over Configuration”: Developers only need to write codes for the irregular or unconventional aspects of the web application.
  • “Don’t Repeat Yourself”: The data is stored in definite place. It saves time and reduces code

Advantages of Ruby on Rails

  • Faster Development: Rails framework enables the developers to write concise and clear syntax and produces fewer codes than its competitors. Therefore it requires less time to code and generates fewer errors. On the other hand it facilitates the programmers to maintain much less code. It is also enabled to integrate numerous tools to automate repetitive tasks such as managing database errors, creating forms etc. it simplifies development process because the language is lightweight and easily readable, almost like the natural language.
  • Increases productivity: Rails framework is specifically featured to reduce the development aspects of applications, instead leveraging creativity and uniqueness of the web application. It empowers productivity by eliminating repetitive programming codes.
  • Assists development of creative interfaces: Rails includes numerous integrations to enable developers in creating rich, intriguing user interfaces. Integrated JavaScript framework is easier to activate and features elements like apparition progressive, drag & drop and many more to ease the designing aspects of the application.
  • Model View Controller design pattern: Rails is developed on MVC architecture that separates the development logics from the presentation layer. It provides a well-structured application to the developers and the code is maintained in a logical and coherent manner.  It encourages abstraction in the application and enables the team to work on separate modules without depending on each other. It focuses on the features rather than minute details. Rails framework delivers ease of project development, conciseness and faster deployment of application.

Rails Development makes web app development easier because it involves less coding while implementing new changes and updates into the development process. It enables the organizations to meet all the business requirements within the budget and schedule.