Railes uses the Model-View-Controller or MVC architecture like many current web frameworks for organizing application programming. MVC in general is an architectural pattern favorably used in software engineering where the application becomes easier and less complex to modify and adjust either the visual appearance of the application or the fundamental business rules without affecting the other. Complicated web applications are indeed more difficult to design than conventional applications but with the help of MVC, it becomes a potential answer to these complexities. In MVC, the View matches up to elements of the user interface such as text, checkbox items and so on. While the Model characterizes the data of the application and other; the View corresponds to elements of the user interface such as text, checkbox items, etc. And it’s up to the Controller to direct details concerning the communication to the model of user actions like the keystrokes and mouse movements.

Ruby on Rails (Rails or RoR) is written in the Ruby programming language which is a dynamic, reflective, general purpose object-oriented programming language that merge syntax influenced by Perl with features like Smalltalk. It is designed to make web development faster, simpler and more efficient. It supports multiple programming paradigms like object oriented, functional and imperative. It is comparable in varying respects to Python, Perl, Dylan, Lisp and CLU because of its dynamic system and automatic memory management features. Ruby is a single-pass interpreted language in its current official implementation written in C and because there is no specification for the Ruby language, the implementation is measured to be a de facto reference.

JRuby, YARV, Rubinius, and IronRuby are some of the alternative implementation of the Ruby language as of 2008 with each of them taking a diverge approach.

“JRuby” One of the strong features of JRuby is its capacity to invoke the classes of the Java Platform considering that it is a Java implementation of the Ruby and is closely incorporated with Java.
“YARV ” an acronym for Yet Another Ruby VM, it is a bytecode interpreter developed for the Ruby programming language with the goal of trimming down the execution time of Ruby programs
“Rubinius” it is clean, understandable code that is easy for users to comprehend and extend. It is a virtual machine and compiler for Ruby.
“IronRuby” an approaching implementation of the Ruby programming language that targets Microsoft .Net framework

One of the Ruby on Rails fundamental principle is “convention over configuration.” It aims to reduce the number of decisions that developers need to make as it gains simplicity but not losing flexibility. The simple phrase implies that a developer only needs to indicate alternative aspects of the application. When the convention implemented by the tool you are utilizing equals your desired behavior, you take pleasure in the gains not even having to write configuration files. When your desired behavior digresses from the implemented convention, then you configure your desired behavior. The programmer can work at a higher level of abstraction with all this configuration free approach to programming.

Also known as Single Point of Truth, “don’t repeat yourself” or DRY is a process philosophy seeking to reduce duplication especially in computing. This philosophy stress on that information should not be duplicated because it makes the change more difficult, it can lessen clarity and may lead to inconsistency. DRY is from Andy Hunt’s and Dave Thomas’ principle in the book of Pragmatic Programmer. A revision of any single element of a system does not alter other logically-unrelated elements when the DRY principle is effectively applied. Moreover, elements are kept in sync because elements that are logically related all change predictably and evenly.

Rails uses the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture just like many other contemporary web frameworks for organizing application programming. Rails is remarkable for its widespread use of the JavaScript libraries Prototype and Script.aculo.us that is significantly used for for Ajax and its graphical interface. And because of Rails’ “out of the box” scaffolding, it can promptly generate most of the models and views necessary for a basic website. Rails has useful development tools built in or already installed like the WEBrick web server and the Rake build system. Rails also originally supported lightweight SOAP for web services and it was later replaced by RESTful web services as it significantly altered to version 1.2.

Ruby on Rails with its noteworthy benefits and real-world applications in production made its web application framework a top choice. And it is not a shocker for Rails to succeed on the abundance of Mac OS X. Ruby on Rails is an open source tool that quickly generates great web applications backed up by SQL databases to keep up with the speed of the web. Members of the Rails core development team work with Mac. A prominent text editor used by Rails programmers is a Cocoa application called TextMate. That is why it is not much of a revelation that Mac OS X has been a preferential application for Rails’ expansion and development.

If Mongrel and lighttpd are not installed, by default Rails will use WEBrick, the webserver that ships with Ruby. All these will guarantee you to always get up and run promptly. Rails will check first if Mongrel exists when you run script/server, then check on lighttpd and would finally fall back to WEBrick which is a small Ruby web server appropriate for development but not for production. Mongrel is a Ruby-based webserver possessing a C component that requires compilation. It is suitable for development and operation of Rails application. Lighttpd is considerably faster than MOngerl and WEBrick but entails additional installation and presently only works well on OS X/Unix.

Ruby Central Inc. is a non-profit organization based in the United States that is committed to support and for the advocacy and promotion of the Ruby programming language. This organization was founded and established by a group of Ruby advocates like David Alan Black, Richard Kilmer and Chad Fowler. Ruby central is the parent of the annual International Ruby and Ruby on Rails Conferences that serves as a presence and contact point of corporate sponsors concerned in supporting and promotion theses conferences and other Ruby activities. Its first project was RubyConf 2002 and ever since, RubyConf’s have been held. Teaming up with the San Francisco-based Software Development Forum to produce the 2006 Silicon Valley Ruby Conference, Ruby central has also become a center for support of Ruby activities.

Ruby on Rails is set to merge with its main competitor, Merb and end up becoming Rails 3:

We all realized that working together for a common good would be much more productive than duplicating things on each side of the fence. Merb and Rails already share so much in terms of design and sensibility that joining forces seemed like the obvious way to go. All we needed was to sit down for a chat and hash it out, so we did just that.

What this will mean in practice is that the Merb team is putting their efforts into bringing all of the key Merb ideas into Rails 3. Yehuda Katz will outright join the Rails core team, Matt Aimonetti will work on a new evangelism team, and Carl Lerche and Daniel Neighman (hassox) will be co-starring the effort to bring all this over. We’ve immortalized the merge with plaque page at rubyonrails.org/merb.

Always give peace a chance, I say.

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