Fabian Magrini | Blog

My development platform is Windows XP. I already had MySQL installed so here are the basic steps I followed: 1. Install Ruby Download the latest .exe from http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=167 For me that was the 1.8.6-26 Final Release, "ruby186-26.exe". Simply run the .exe and follow any onscreen prompts. 2. Install RubyGems RubyGems is Ruby's standard package manager. Download the latest .zip from http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=126 For me that was "rubygems-0.9.5.zip". Unzip to your local drive, open up a command prompt and cd to where you extracted the zip. Run the following from the command prompt: > ruby setup.rb 3. Install Rails I needed to install version 1.2.6 which was the version used to developed the site. Run the following from the command prompt: > gem install rails --version 1.2.6 This install will take a few minutes.

The obvious starting point is http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/ . There are plenty of references to online resources that will get you started. There is also many books on the subject. I chose the following two titles to kick things off: Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition By Dave Thomas, Chad Fowler, Andy Hunt Agile Web Development with Rails, 2nd Edition By Dave Thomas, David Hansson, Leon Breedt, Mike Clark, James Duncan Davidson, Justin Gehtland, Andreas Schwarz

Well it is a new year and a new Blog and what better way to commence than to share my experiences in learning a new language / platform. My team has been given the task of providing the technical support and ongoing development of a website developed by a 3rd party. Always a pleasure! Anyway, to cut to the chase it is implemented in Ruby on Rails which is technology yet to be explored by myself or the team. Lets jump straight into it.