Professional Heroku Programming

Chapter 11

Developing with Ruby

WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Understanding Ruby
• Installing Ruby on your local workstation
• Managing dependencies
• Creating an application with the Rails framework
• Creating an application with the Sinatra framework
• Using Delayed Job for background jobs
• Caching with Ruby
• Porting Ruby applications to Heroku

WROX.COM CODE DOWNLOADS FOR THIS CHAPTER

The wrox.com code downloads for this chapter are found at www.wrox.com/remtitle.cgi?isbn=1118508998 on the Download Code tab. The code is in the Chapter 11 download and individually named according to the names throughout the chapter.

This chapter explores how to run Ruby apps on Heroku. To create Ruby apps on Heroku, you first must install Ruby locally. Dependencies in Ruby are managed using Bundle. You can create Ruby apps using a number of frameworks, including the popular Rails and Sinatra frameworks.

Background jobs are used for long-running tasks and Delayed Job can be used in Ruby to run these jobs. Caching is important to ensure that Ruby apps run quickly, and a number of different strategies can be employed in Ruby. There are also a number of important considerations to keep in mind when porting apps on Ruby to ensure it runs properly.

UNDERSTANDING RUBY

When Heroku launched in 2007, Ruby was the only supported language. It has since evolved into a polyglot platform, but Ruby still remains Heroku’s most popular language because of its roots in the Ruby development community. Heroku’s commitment to Ruby ...