Ruby Challenge 2010: Creating first application and working with Git

Hi all one more time,

Last time we stopped by installing Rails. Let’s check one more time it’s current version

C:\Users\Monomachus>rails --version
Rails 3.0.3

You can notice that from the last time we talked about it Rails version changed from 3.0.1 to 3.0.3. That’s because I’ve updated my system.

Now lets create a new application with Rails. We can do it by using “rails new name_of_the_application” command

D:\rails_tutorial_project>rails new first_application
      create
      create  README
      create  Rakefile
      create  config.ru
      create  .gitignore
      create  Gemfile
      create  app
      create  app/controllers/application_controller.rb
      create  app/helpers/application_helper.rb
      create  app/mailers
      create  app/models
      create  app/views/layouts/application.html.erb
      create  config
      create  config/routes.rb
      create  config/application.rb
      create  config/environment.rb
      create  config/environments
      create  config/environments/development.rb
      create  config/environments/production.rb
      create  config/environments/test.rb
      create  config/initializers
      create  config/initializers/backtrace_silencers.rb
      create  config/initializers/inflections.rb
      create  config/initializers/mime_types.rb
      create  config/initializers/secret_token.rb
      create  config/initializers/session_store.rb
      create  config/locales
      create  config/locales/en.yml
      create  config/boot.rb
      create  config/database.yml
      create  db
      create  db/seeds.rb
      create  doc
      create  doc/README_FOR_APP
      create  lib
      create  lib/tasks
      create  lib/tasks/.gitkeep
      create  log
      create  log/server.log
      create  log/production.log
      create  log/development.log
      create  log/test.log
      create  public
      create  public/404.html
      create  public/422.html
      create  public/500.html
      create  public/favicon.ico
      create  public/index.html
      create  public/robots.txt
      create  public/images
      create  public/images/rails.png
      create  public/stylesheets
      create  public/stylesheets/.gitkeep
      create  public/javascripts
      create  public/javascripts/application.js
      create  public/javascripts/controls.js
      create  public/javascripts/dragdrop.js
      create  public/javascripts/effects.js
      create  public/javascripts/prototype.js
      create  public/javascripts/rails.js
      create  script
      create  script/rails
      create  test
      create  test/fixtures
      create  test/functional
      create  test/integration
      create  test/performance/browsing_test.rb
      create  test/test_helper.rb
      create  test/unit
      create  tmp
      create  tmp/sessions
      create  tmp/sockets
      create  tmp/cache
      create  tmp/pids
      create  vendor/plugins
      create  vendor/plugins/.gitkeep

Will get to each of those files in this series posts, this is what I hope at least to achieve.

Tip of the day: .gitignore file is used to let git know what kind of files we don’t want to add/commit to repository 

Ok, so we got everything created now and rails made for us a brand new application which should already work so let’s try it with “rails server” command. First we need to cd into the new created directory.

And I got error at first

And these errors in command line

D:\rails_tutorial_project\first_application>rails server
C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sqlite3-ruby-1.3.2-x86-mingw32/lib/sq
lite3.rb:6:in `require': no such file to load -- sqlite3/sqlite3_native (LoadErr
or)
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sqlite3-ruby-1.3.2-x86-m
ingw32/lib/sqlite3.rb:6:in `rescue in <top (required)>'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sqlite3-ruby-1.3.2-x86-m
ingw32/lib/sqlite3.rb:2:in `<top (required)>'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/bundler-1.0.7/lib/bundle
r/runtime.rb:64:in `require'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/bundler-1.0.7/lib/bundle
r/runtime.rb:64:in `block (2 levels) in require'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/bundler-1.0.7/lib/bundle
r/runtime.rb:62:in `each'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/bundler-1.0.7/lib/bundle
r/runtime.rb:62:in `block in require'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/bundler-1.0.7/lib/bundle
r/runtime.rb:51:in `each'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/bundler-1.0.7/lib/bundle
r/runtime.rb:51:in `require'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/bundler-1.0.7/lib/bundle
r.rb:112:in `require'
        from D:/rails_tutorial_project/first_application/config/application.rb:7
:in `<top (required)>'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.0.3/lib/rails
/commands.rb:28:in `require'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.0.3/lib/rails
/commands.rb:28:in `block in <top (required)>'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.0.3/lib/rails
/commands.rb:27:in `tap'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.0.3/lib/rails
/commands.rb:27:in `<top (required)>'
        from script/rails:6:in `require'
        from script/rails:6:in `<main>'

After poking a little bit on forums I saw that I need to download the latest version of Sqlite dll’s and put them into my “ruby\bin” folder. Ok no problems, let’s do it. So you can download it here.

Downloaded, unziped, xcopied into ruby\bin folder. Let’s try again.

D:\rails_tutorial_project\first_application>rails server
=> Booting WEBrick
=> Rails 3.0.3 application starting in development on http://0.0.0.0:3000
=> Call with -d to detach
=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server
[2010-12-11 10:00:40] INFO  WEBrick 1.3.1
[2010-12-11 10:00:40] INFO  ruby 1.9.2 (2010-08-18) [i386-mingw32]
[2010-12-11 10:00:44] INFO  WEBrick::HTTPServer#start: pid=3560 port=3000

Ok so now that works fine.

P.S. Anyone knows how to run the server and then to detach in windows it also gives me an error in Windows when I try to use “rails server –d”

D:\rails_tutorial_project\first_application>rails server -d
=> Booting WEBrick
=> Rails 3.0.3 application starting in development on http://0.0.0.0:3000
C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.0.3/lib/active_suppor
t/core_ext/process/daemon.rb:3:in `fork': fork() function is unimplemented on th
is machine (NotImplementedError)
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activesupport-3.0.3/lib/
active_support/core_ext/process/daemon.rb:3:in `daemon'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.2.1/lib/rack/serv
er.rb:262:in `daemonize_app'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.2.1/lib/rack/serv
er.rb:202:in `start'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.0.3/lib/rails
/commands/server.rb:65:in `start'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.0.3/lib/rails
/commands.rb:30:in `block in <top (required)>'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.0.3/lib/rails
/commands.rb:27:in `tap'
        from C:/rubies/Ruby192/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/railties-3.0.3/lib/rails
/commands.rb:27:in `<top (required)>'
        from script/rails:6:in `require'
        from script/rails:6:in `<main>'

WORKING WITH GIT

Ok now let’s try to work a little bit with git. I’ll be using now the “Git Bash” command line.

$ git init                // initilize the repository
$ git add .               // adds everything to repository
$ git commit -m "First commit" // make initial commit

So here everything should be clear. In git commit command –m means specifying message.

Now we can check the logs

Monomachus@MONOMACHUS-PC /d/rails_tutorial_project/first_application (master)
$ git log
commit 24d181eef79f1c6bd28898bcb0a587ff04a73dca
Author: unknown <Monomachus@.(none)>
Date:   Sat Dec 11 10:12:55 2010 +0200

    First commit

Now let’s see how can we checkout but first let’s delete some important file (Gemfile for example) and verify the status of git.

Monomachus@MONOMACHUS-PC /d/rails_tutorial_project/first_application (master)
$ rm Gemfile*

Monomachus@MONOMACHUS-PC /d/rails_tutorial_project/first_application (master)
$ ls
README    app     config.ru  doc  log     script  tmp
Rakefile  config  db         lib  public  test    vendor

Monomachus@MONOMACHUS-PC /d/rails_tutorial_project/first_application (master)
$ git status
# On branch master
# Changed but not updated:
#   (use "git add/rm <file>..." to update what will be committed)
#   (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
#
#       deleted:    Gemfile
#       deleted:    Gemfile.lock
#
no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

Monomachus@MONOMACHUS-PC /d/rails_tutorial_project/first_application (master)
$ git checkout -f

Monomachus@MONOMACHUS-PC /d/rails_tutorial_project/first_application (master)
$ ls
Gemfile       README    app     config.ru  doc  log     script  tmp
Gemfile.lock  Rakefile  config  db         lib  public  test    vendor

 

So you can see here that using “git status” command we checked out the status of repository and with “git checkout –f” command we made a forced checkout and restored everything as it was before.

It’s all for today. Next time we’ll play a little with Github and Heroku. I hope you liked it.

 

Ruby Challenge 2010: Installing Ruby and its tools on Windows

Hi,

Today I decided to install all the prerequisites and to show you how I’ve done this, may be for some people it will be useful. And I’m doing it by reproducing the Rails 3.0 tutorial but for Windows.

1. Text editor / IDE

From various IDEs and Unix-style editors like vi or emacs or whatever. I decided to go with a full IDE solution so … the nominees are

1. Aptana Studio 2.0 – standalone version
2. NetBeans 6.9.1 – ruby version
3. RubyMine 2.0 – from JetBrains (creators of Resharper, TeamCity and a lot of other cool software for programmers).

I wanted to go with RubyMine because I already know the difference Resharper brings in my development process, but it’s a 30-days trial, and I don’t want to switch to something new in next few months, so no. I don’t have previous experience with Aptana Studio, and may be I will try it some day, but I had a pleasant experience with NetBeans so for now I will go with that.

2. Git

Ruby community uses intensely a version control system called Git, so I will install it too. For windows part it is very simple. You go to http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/. Click “Downloads” and choose current version Git.exe installer.

Install process is Windows-style - very simple as well. We don’t have to manually compile something or edit, everything goes quite simple.

3. Installing Ruby

First we need to be sure that our system doesn’t already has Ruby installed. Let’s try it.

C:\Users\user_name>ruby -v
'ruby' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

Well looks like I don’t have it installed. Not a problem. First we’ll install Ruby 1.8.7 which works well with Rails 2.3. We’ll go to Download Ruby page search for “Ruby on Windows” section and select Ruby 1.8.7-p302 RubyInstaller. Installation goes smoothly. I associated my *.rb files with ruby and added Ruby executables to my path.

Now we see this in our command line:

C:\Users\user_name>ruby -v
ruby 1.8.7 (2010-08-16 patchlevel 302) [i386-mingw32]

4. Installing and using Pik

What is Pik? Pik is a Windows alternative to Ruby Version Manager (RVM) which allows us to have multiple Ruby versions installed at the same time, as I said before we need Ruby 1.8.7 to work with Rails 2.3 and Ruby 1.9.2 to work with Rails 3.0.1 and Pik will help us in dealing with this. You can download Pik from github. Also be sure to check its Wiki page “Usage”.

Now when we run the first time pik it adds the default Ruby path which right now points to version 1.8.7. I also set Pik default install directory to “C:\Rubies” and I also show how to add an existing ruby installation to pik with the “add” command.

C:\Users\user_name>pik
** Adding:  187: ruby 1.8.7 (2010-08-16 patchlevel 302) [i386-mingw32]
 Located at:  C:\Rubies\Ruby187\bin
Usage: pik command [options]

To get help with a command

  pik help (command)

To list all commands and descriptions:

  pik help commands

    -V, --version                    Pik version
    -d, --debug                      Outputs debug information

C:\Users\user_name>pik config installs="C:\Rubies"

C:\Users\user_name>pik add C:\Rubies\Ruby-1.9.2dev-p3-i386-mingw32\bin
** Adding:  192: ruby 1.9.2dev (2010-05-31) [i386-mingw32]
 Located at:  C:\Rubies\Ruby-1.9.2dev-p3-i386-mingw32\bin

Next I show how to install a Ruby version using “install” command. In my particular case I installed IronRuby specifying the version, and then not specifying it. When you don’t specify it then Pik downloads the latest version. (although at the moment the latest version of IronRuby is 1.1.1, don’t know what is wrong there). Than I show how to list all the available Rubies installations (note that * marks the default ruby used at the moment), how to remove a Ruby install from Pik management, and how to switch to another Ruby installation.

C:\Users\user_name>pik install IronRuby 1.0.0
** Downloading:  http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/69853/ironruby-1.0.0rc.zi
p
   to:  C:\Users\user_name\.pik\downloads\ironruby-1.0.0rc.zip

ironruby-1.0.0rc.zip: 100% |ooooooooooooooooooo|   4.7MB/  4.7MB Time: 00:00:06

** Extracting:  C:\Users\user_name\.pik\downloads\ironruby-1.0.0rc.zip
   to:  C:\rubies\IronRuby-100rc
done

Couldn't find a Ruby version at C:\rubies\IronRuby-100rc\bin

C:\Users\user_name>pik add C:\Rubies\IronRuby-100rc\ironruby\bin
** Adding:  100: IronRuby 1.0.0.0 on .NET 2.0.50727.4454
 Located at:  C:\Rubies\IronRuby-100rc\ironruby\bin

C:\Users\user_name>pik install IronRuby
** Downloading:  http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/70181/ironruby-1.0v4.zip

   to:  C:\Users\user_name\.pik\downloads\ironruby-1.0v4.zip

ironruby-1.0v4.zip: 100% |ooooooooooooooooooooo|   2.9MB/  2.9MB Time: 00:00:04

** Extracting:  C:\Users\user_name\.pik\downloads\ironruby-1.0v4.zip
   to:  C:\rubies\IronRuby-10v4
done

** Adding:  100: IronRuby 1.0.0.0 on .NET 4.0.30319.1
 Located at:  C:\rubies\IronRuby-10v4\bin

C:\Users\user_name>pik remove C:\Rubies\IronRuby-100rc\ironruby\bin

Quitting...

C:\Users\user_name>pik help commands

  add             Adds another ruby location to pik.
  benchmark|bench Runs bencmarks with all versions that pik is aware of.
  config          Adds/modifies configuration options.
  default         Switches back to the default settings.
  devkit          Configures devkit settings
  gem             Runs the gem command with all versions that pik is aware of.
  gemsync         Synchronizes gems from the version specified to the current ve
rsion.
  help            Displays help information.
  implode         Removes your pik configuration.
  info|checkup|cu Displays information about the current ruby version.
  install|in      Downloads and installs different ruby versions.
  list|ls         Lists ruby versions that pik is aware of.
  rake            Runs the rake command with all versions that pik is aware of.
  remove|rm       Removes a ruby location from pik.
  ruby|rb         Runs ruby with all versions that pik is aware of.
  run             Runs command with all versions of ruby that pik is aware of.
  tag             Adds the given tag to the current version.
  tags            Runs the pik command against the given tags.
  uninstall|unin  Deletes a ruby version from the filesystem and removes it from
 Pik.
  update|up       updates pik.
  use|switch|sw   Switches ruby versions based on patterns.

For help on a particular command, use 'pik help COMMAND'.

C:\Users\user_name>pik list
  100: IronRuby 1.0.0.0 on .NET 2.0.50727.4454
  100: IronRuby 1.0.0.0 on .NET 4.0.30319.1
* 187: ruby 1.8.7 (2010-08-16 patchlevel 302) [i386-mingw32]
  192: ruby 1.9.2dev (2010-05-31) [i386-mingw32]

C:\Users\user_name>pik remove 100
Select which Ruby you want:
1. 100: IronRuby 1.0.0.0 on .NET 2.0.50727.4454
2. 100: IronRuby 1.0.0.0 on .NET 4.0.30319.1
?  1
Are you sure you'd like to remove '100: IronRuby 1.0.0.0 on .NET 2.0.50727.4454'
?  |yes|

100: IronRuby 1.0.0.0 on .NET 2.0.50727.4454 removed.

C:\Users\user_name>pik use 192

C:\Users\user_name>pik list
  100: IronRuby 1.0.0.0 on .NET 4.0.30319.1
  187: ruby 1.8.7 (2010-08-16 patchlevel 302) [i386-mingw32]
* 192: ruby 1.9.2dev (2010-05-31) [i386-mingw32]

The only thing that I can’t find is an alternative to RVM –create command which is often convenient to create separate gemsets. 

5. Installing and using RubyGems

UPDATE: After installing any version of Ruby you already should have RubyGems installed. You can check it up by using “gem –v” command. I talk about installing RubyGems here just because I was having errors with default installation of gem. 

After everything done I already have gems installed but it has some errors so I will download the latest version from here. After that you unpack it somewhere cd into its directory and say

ruby setup.rb

Now gems should be installed. Next thing you could do is see what is your Gems environment with “gem env” command, or see the gems sources with “gem sources” command. Finally you could do “gem list” for list of local gems, “gem list –r” for remote gems, and “gem list STRING” which will bring you the list of gems starting with string.

6. Installing Rails

Now having Gems installed it’s really easy to install Rails. You should just say

gem install rails

Or

gem install rails --version 3.0.1

Now everything should be prepared and installed. You can verify it by writing “rails –v” and have the rails version.

Well that’s a lot of things to do, especially if you’re used already with Windows way of installing things. Hope this post will help someone.

Next time we’ll do our first application in RoR (Ruby on Rails), so stay tuned!

Started learning Ruby

Hi,

Today I decided to start learning Ruby on Rails 3.0.

Why? Well, there are a dozen of reasons but the most important are:

• I’ve seen and listened enough about this language and all I’ve heard are positive things, well I assume there are also some negative things like debugging for example (debugging is an issue for a lot of dynamic type languages),
• also I’d like to be able to make things a little bit more easy. I’d like to do it in a faster manner. I’d also like to have an alternative to .NET, because of its initial costs.
• Well, also it is because of one of the podcasts I listen, This developer’s life. In podcast #5 Homerun Rob Conery talks with Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson about Rails creation and about Rails in general, he seems very excited and is very confident about Rails future. Also one listening was watching the panel discussion of .NET Rocks! from NDC (Norwegian Developer Conference 2010). There were a lot of .NET folks and also Ruby folks as well, the panel topic was “ASP.NET MVC vs Ruby on Rails”, in the end silently everybody agreed that Ruby is simpler for startups, and it costs less (I mean you don’t need Visual Studio licenses and SQL Servers).
• They all talk about this great Ruby community which is willing to help you if you will have any problems at all. I want to check that out.
• I hope understanding more ASP.NET MVC 3 after making something practical in Ruby on Rails.
• We do have now DLR  and IronRuby 1.0 in .NET so I could use my new set of skills in my usual environment.

Now where should I start from?

Assuming that I want to learn fast I found these two videos which apparently enough are very famous in Ruby world, and gave me a taste of what kind of power Ruby is:

Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson shows how to make a blog in 15 minutes using Ruby on Rails

 

And the same kind of video but using already Rails 2.0 (it has 2 parts)

Creating blog in 15 minutes by Ryan Bates Part 1

 

Creating blog in 15 minutes by Ryan Bates Part 2

Now I must admit that I’ve seen it before using ASP.NET MVC but still I think it is very power. By the way the new ASP.NET MVC 3 is in beta now so you can check it out.

I also found a nice site on starting Ruby on Rails 3.0 using all modern tools which are used in the community like Git, GitHub and Heroku. And because it is not too long I’ll start to read these tutorial. Learn Rails by Example.

Also to be motivated I’ll need to do something real. Because I’m playing in a strategic web game fr.europe1400.com, and I’m the founder of the guild there I will try to create a web site for this guild.

What should this website include:

1. Authentication
2. User roles: admin, moderator, others
3. User details
4. Informative section: includes videos, pictures
5. Discussion panel: which is pretty much the same as a forum or blog: someone creates a post and then someone else comment this post.
6. Some admin only functionalities.

Well I hope it won’t take too long till this site will be up and running on Heroku. See ya, hope next time I’ll bring some code.