Ruby on Rails® for Microsoft Developers

Chapter 1. Getting Started with Rails

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

—Mahatma Gandhi

Ruby on Rails is a highly productive Web application framework for the Ruby language. It will change the way you think about Web development and simplify the process of creating, deploying, and maintaining your Web applications. It could be argued that Ruby on Rails will ultimately make you a better developer.

These statements may seem like bold claims now, but over the course of the next few chapters, sufficient evidence is presented that will help to convince you otherwise.

The aim of this chapter is to provide you with an introduction to the Rails framework, and help you set up your favorite operating system so that it's ready to work with Rails.

What's in a Name? The name Ruby on Rails is often shortened to Rails. Another common abbreviation is the acronym RoR (pronounced like a lion's "roar"). I feel it is important to clarify something that is often a source of confusion for newcomers: Ruby is a modern, object-oriented programming language, which predates Rails by about a decade. Ruby on Rails is simply the "full name" of a great Web framework written in Ruby, for Ruby developers. This name is also used for the URL of the official project website, available at http://rubyonrails.org.