Hi nice guys!
I've been using Rails for a couple of days. I've got to say that Rails
do meet the buzzword expectations... Every part of Rails amazes me,
especially Active Record. I come from the PHP world where there are
vast choices of "DB abstraction layer" we can choose, from the
"minimalist" PEAR DB, to PEAR MDB, and what I'd say the most advanced
ones like Creole+Propel. Active Record definitely wins by several
hands. I wonder how much time David (and Rails contributors) has spent
on Active Record alone, let alone the entire Rails package. The
Migration feature is very handy, the concept is simple yet it works.
Some packages like PEAR MDB uses schema comparison approach, which is
very complex (especially for MB developers) and also not very easy to
use. Although MDB's technique also automates it a bit (basically you
define a target schema, and MDB will modify the current database to
match the target, but I like Migration's approach much better).
Anyways, I've come across several problems. Maybe bugs, maybe not. In
any case I was hoping if it can be enhanced even if not fixed, so not
everyone will face these problems again. At the very least, giving a
helpful error message would be really great. So, let's get started...
The first difficulty is getting the first Rails app to work. I'm using
Ruby one-click Installer on Windows XP. The installer works great.
Rails, though, not that smooth. I choose to download the
"rails-x.x.x.tgz" since it claims to have the entire package (I do
aware that Rails uses activerecord, etc. gems, but I don't download it
since the "entire package" supposedly has them). Note that I don't
have active Internet connection, I go to Internet cafe to download all
the stuff I need then I go back home to try what I've downloaded. That
means if I missed a needed part, I've to go back to Internet cafe
again, and that's not nice.
Extracted rails-1.1.6.tgz. Trying... But, it turns out that "ruby
script/server" fails:
D:\rails>ruby script/server
=> Booting WEBrick...
c:/ruby/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in `gem_original_re
quire': ./script/../config/../config/environment.rb:8: parse error, unexpected '
<' (SyntaxError)
<%= '# ' if freeze %>RAILS_GEM_VERSION = '<%= Rails::VERSION::STRING %>'
^ from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in `re
quire'
from ./script/../config/../vendor/rails/activesupport/lib/active_support
/dependencies.rb:147:in `require'
from ./script/../config/../vendor/rails/railties/lib/commands/servers/we
brick.rb:52
from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in `ge
m_original_require'
from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in `re
quire'
from ./script/../config/../vendor/rails/activesupport/lib/active_support
/dependencies.rb:147:in `require'
from ./script/../config/../vendor/rails/railties/lib/commands/server.rb:
30
from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in `ge
m_original_require'
from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in `re
quire'
from script/server:3
Definitely not a very nice experience.
After banging my head several times, I figured that I've to download
the rails gem and all the gems it requires. Another roundtrip to
Internet cafe. I can't find a page on Rails download page that lists
direct link URLs to all gems I need [BAD], maybe it's somewhere but it
should be very visible upfront to avoid frustrations. I also can't
find a Rails download that includes all the Rails gems and its
supportive files in one .tgz or .zip file (BAD). I'm aware of
InstantRails, but it seems more like a "distro" rather than a
collection of needed support files, therefore I don't download it.
The "solution" is to install Ruby on the computer that's connected to
the Internet. Then I execute the recommended way of installing rails :
gem install rails --include-dependencies
Took some time. But it works. The problem is, you can't just install
Ruby on every computer you need to use to download Rails. Why not just
pack a bunch of gems in one tgz/zip to make some people's life easier?
The problem was, how do I copy the required .gem-s to my computer? It
turns out I have to mess with C:\ruby\lib\ruby folder to find the gems
I need, copy those to my flashdisk and bring them home. OK, mission
accomplished.
[another annoyance, not directly related to Rails] The problem with
installing .gems from localdisk is that gem doesn't seem to
autoinstall dependencies (not like online gem install from Internet).
The way that some people actually think that most people in the world
have 24-hour Internet connection at the luxury of their home computers
definitely disgusts me (sorry). After manually installing all required
gems, a call to rails to build a site, then 'ruby script/server'
works. Oh, at last.
But why did I has to be so painful to get here?
A side note: Installing Apache + PHP on Windows is also not that easy
(it's much harder than installing Ruby/Rails, IMHO, requires you to
edit some files like httpd.conf, php.ini, PATH env, etc.). At the very
least, it doesn't require active Internet connection and having to
install some program (like Ruby + rubygem) just to download something.
All I need would be the Apache binary package, the PHP zip package,
and the PHP manual which contains everything you need to know to
install, configure, develop (it includes User Guide as well as
Reference), even to create PHP extensions using C! (the enhanced CHM
version even comes with user comments, definitely a plus).
Sorry for the complaints, but it'd be great if we could have more ways
to make Rails better and easier to use.
The Rails 1.1.6 tarball includes the environment.rb template instead of a ‘real’ generated file. If this problem is fixed, the tarball install should work fine for you. Sorry for the frustration (and extra trips to the internet cafe!)