The Intellectual's Programming Guide

Ruby on Rails Demo

An integrated development environment (IDE) consists of:

a source code editor

a compiler and/or and interpreter

build automation tools

a debugger

IDEs provide programmers with a single program to do all of their development. They includes features for authoring, modifying, compiling, deploying, and debugging software.Typically, IDEs are designed for a particular programming language to maximize their efficiency and consistency. There are some IDEs, however, such as Eclipse, ActiveState Komodo which are recent versions of NetBeans, Microsoft Visual Studio, WinDev, and Xcode, which support multiple languages. Basically, IDEs increase productivity of programmers by reducing the time it takes to learn a language by integrating the command line utilities into a cohesive unit. 

Rails Screencasts

           Rails Screencasts

Commercial Screen Casters

           Peep Code, EnvyCasts, Pragmatic.tv 

Rails Guides

           Rails Guides

Rails Blogs

Before learning Ruby on Rails, I wanted to first research what the language actually is first. Here is a compilation of some of the information I found on the web. After I learn it, I'll do my best to resummarize it and explain it in a way that my cousin, who is only 5 years old, could understand it... wish me luck! 

Ruby on Rails is a way of developing ridiculously fast web applications compared to other frameworks. It's two parts (Ruby and Rails) make up its framework together. So to understand what Ruby on Rails is, you have to understand what Ruby is, what Rails is, and then synthesize the information. 

Ruby

Ruby is a sophisticated programming language that tries to take the best parts of other programming languages, such as Python, PHP, Lisp, Dylan, Pike, CLU and Perl, and combine them to form a more powerful syntax. The language supports several programming models such as functional, object oriented, imperative, and reflective. It also has a dynamic tapesystem and automatic memory management. 

Rails

Rails is an open source web application framework. A framework for any program is made up of reusable components and code that can be used throughout the application, like a skeleton structure. There are many other types of frameworks, but Rails is becoming increasingly more popular. 

Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails is a framework used to create web applications written using Ruby. Ruby on Rails lets you develop a web application in 1/10th the time it would take you if you were using Java. Ruby on Rails uses less software which means write less code to develop your application. The less code you have to write, the faster you can create your application and the easier it will be to maintain. This framework focuses on convention rather than configuration; since there are no long-winded XML configuration files in Rails, which instead has built in programming conventions, Rails automatically discovers what it needs to know directly from your web code application and running your data base, taking the responsibility off of you.