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Sayanee's blog 2005 - 2012. Checkout her latest blog!

Day 0 Running on Rails

06 May 2011 on Learning

I am learning Rails 3.0, the web development framework behind many of the sites hosted on the web today! Whooops! So, I also decided to blog my journey and share out the tit bits I catch along the way and if you have suggestions of ideas, dive in and tell me ;-) I have looked into many awesome tutorials here and there, and watched the helpful webcasts and screencasts, read bits of books here and there. But I figured that the best way to learn anything, is actually to build something, anything with the tools.

So, my objective is very simple - building a fun todo application that I will use myself … a bit like scratching my own itch! I’m a very list-y person - I think in lists and so i hope it’ll also help you follow through and get to the point of what i’m learning and building!

Tasks done + awesome tutorials:

  1. Install latest Ruby
  2. Install Ruby Gems
  3. Install Rails ( tutorial for MAC)
  4. Create a new Rails App from Terminal
$ rails new todo-app
$ cd todo-app #Amend README File
$ bundle install #To install all GEMS needed
$ rails server #and start viewing your app in browser via http://localhost:3000
  1. Connect to GitHub from the Terminal (Nettuts tutorial screencast on Terminal & Github)
$ git init
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Initial Commit"
$ git remote add origin [email protected]:sayanee/My-Todo.git
$ git push -u origin master
  1. Deploying to Heroku from the Terminal
$ heroku create [app-name]
$ git push heroku master
$ heroku rake db:migrate
$ heroku db:push
$ heroku open

Tools used:

  1. TextMate for coding
  2. ShellTo to open Terminal window from any directory in Finder
  3. SQLite Database Browser
  4. TinyGrab to get tasty screenshots
  5. Codecolerer Wordpress plugin to display code snippets in this post
  6. Evernote to capture code snippets that I use over and over again!

Time Taken: 5 days

Fun Stuff done today: My Code in Github and my app in Heroku!

Next Objective: Build a CRUD implementation for my Todo list from scratch without using the magical Scaffold of Rails!

So, what are your thoughts? If you are not a coder, better still - let me know what your ideal todo would look like and what features would you love? You only need to look at the app right here to comment. If you are also new to Rails, I would be happy to learn together and if you are advanced, I would also love to hear your suggestions on how best I can learn the fundamentals E.g. my mentor told me to not use the magical Scaffold to understand the core, etc.

I hope my journey will be fun, open and in the end build something that someone else out there will also find it valuable … so join me :)