Agile Web Development with Rails

It manages sessions, giving users the impression of ongoing interaction with our applications.

There�fs alot toRails.Ratherthan attackitcomponentby component,let�fs roll up our sleeves and write a couple of working applications.In the next chapter we�fllinstallRails.Afterthat we�fll write something simple,justto make sure wehave everythinginstalled correctly.InChapter 5, TheDepotApplication, on page 62 we�fll start writing something moresubstantial.asimpleonline store application.

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Chapter3

InstallingRails

Normallythesekinds ofbooksbuildup slowly, starting withthe easy stuff and buildingslowly to the advanced material.Theideais tolullfolksinto thinking it�fs easy whilethey�frebrowsinginthebookstores, and thenhitthem with the enormity of theirpurchase only after they�fve taken thebookhome.

We�fre notthatkind ofbook.BecauseRailsisjust so easy, it turns out that this is probably the hardest chapter in the book. Yup.it�fs the �ghow to get a Rails environment running onyour computer�h chapter.

Don�ftletthatputyou off;itreallyisn�ft thathard.It�fsjustthatyou�freinstalling aprofessional-quality web tieronyourbox, and anumberof components are involved.And,because operating systemsdifferin the way they support com-ponents such as web servers, you�fll .nd that this chapter will have different sectionsforWindows,Mac, andUnixusers.(Don�ft worry,though.Once we�fre past this chapter, allthe operating systemdependencies willbebehind us.)

Mike Clark and Dave Thomas run a series of Rails Studios,1 where people who�fve never usedRails orRubylearnto write applications.The recommenda-tions in this chapter are based on our experiences getting these folks up and running asquickly andpainlessly aspossible.

Also, you�fll notice that this section defers to online resources. That�fs because the worldis changing rapidly, and anylow-levelinstructionsprintedin abook arelikely tobecome outdated.

3.1 Your Shopping List

TogetRails running onyour system,you�fll need thefollowing.

. A Ruby interpreter. Rails is written in Ruby, and you�fll be writing your applicationsinRuby too.TheRails team now recommendsRuby version

1. http://pragmaticstudio.com

Prepared exclusively for Jordan A. Fowler

INSTALLING ON WINDOWS

1.8.4.(Thelatest version ofRuby as ofOctober2006is1.8.5.This runs Rails just .ne, but you may encounter some issues using the break-pointer.)

.

Ruby onRails.Thisbook waswrittenusingRailsversion1.2.

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Somelibraries.

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Adatabase.We�freusingMySQL5.0.22inthisbook.

For adevelopment machine,that�fs about all we�fll need(apartfrom an editor, and we�flltalk about editors separately).However,ifyou�fregoingtodeployyour application,you�fll also need toinstall aproduction web server(as a minimum) along with some support code to let Rails run ef.ciently. We have a whole chapter devoted to this, starting on page 613, so we won�ft talk about it more here.

So,howdoyouget all thisinstalled?Itdepends onyour operating system....

3.2 Installing on Windows