RoR to interact with DB on IIS server

Hello All I am new here.

First off, I have never been a great programmer, or even a functional one… I worked briefly with ASP back years and years ago and was able to create a database driven site. The height of my achievements…

I am now diving into Ruby with the hopes that this will be my first real successful programming experience.

So heres my question. Say ACME Company has all of their company apps written in .NET. These apps interact with a database holding all of their clients details.

ACME's website also has an application which interacts with the DB as well to make payments, update client info etc… The website's back end was all done in .NET too…

All of this is housed on an IIS server.

I would like to move the websites to a linux server and move the apps to RoR. So would it be possible to rewrite the web applications using RoR and interact with the same database as all of the existing .NET applications?

Long story short: .NET apps and RoR apps all interacting with the same DB?

Does this make sense? Please excuse me if this is gibberish, Im new...

Any help appreciated!

Hello All I am new here.

First off, I have never been a great programmer, or even a functional

one…

I worked briefly with ASP back years and years ago and was able to

create a database driven site. The height of my achievements…

I am now diving into Ruby with the hopes that this will be my first real

successful programming experience.

So heres my question.

Say ACME Company has all of their company apps written in .NET.

These apps interact with a database holding all of their clients

details.

ACME’s website also has an application which interacts with the DB as

well to make payments, update client info etc…

The website’s back end was all done in .NET too…

All of this is housed on an IIS server.

I would like to move the websites to a linux server and move the apps to

RoR.

So would it be possible to rewrite the web applications using RoR and

interact with the same database as all of the existing .NET

applications?

Long story short:

.NET apps and RoR apps all interacting with the same DB?

I am assuming you are probably using Sql Server, right? Rails does have a Sql Server driver (never used personally). You should be able to do this but I would highly recommend not trying to do this as your first Rails project. Also the question is why you want to rewrite the app in rails. ActiveRecord in Rails makes db input/output very easy but it does so by following certain conventions. If you are going to map legacy db schemas to ActiveRecord, you have a road ahead of you to get things working. Only you know your situation but I would consider pushing the agenda of migrating data to Postges and using Postgres as your database going forward — that may very well be easier to do than the latter.

Stefan Hinck wrote in post #957857: [...]

Long story short: .NET apps and RoR apps all interacting with the same DB?

Try to avoid this. It might be better to have most (or all) of the apps interacting with the DB by means of Web services. (Rails ActiveResource makes this pretty easy.)

Best,

I'd also suggest if at all possible, get someone to help out with getting you started. If you don't have much of a background in programming this isn't going to be the easiest first project. Go to a local Ruby or Rails meetup where you live. Depending on your budget (from a case of beer to some real money) I bet you can find someone who'd at least be able to mentor you and give you a hand with the details of your project. Mailing lists are great, but a bit of pairing with someone with more experience and having their IM details will really help you get this done with a lot less pain.

Best Wishes, Peter

Yea I think your right, this is way outta my league.

What has always confused me is how developers make it from their first book and building their hello world or calculator app, to actually programming a real world solution.

When I sit down to see what I can try to create, I always draw a blank. Lets build a neat little calculator!

Then when there are actual things needing to be done or solved, its always too difficult or out of reach.

Its always miffed me how developers make it from crawl to walk.

You can do it, it just takes a little time (as with most things, a little more than you expect). Try building a simple blog in Rails (I hear it only takes 10 minutes :slight_smile: ). Then add some features. Then try using a Microsoft SQL server database. Then try *not* using the standard Rails conventions for the id field, etc. Do this while you have a bit of time and no deadline, and after a bit you'll be ready to tackle this kind of project with only the occasional hint from the list.

And I'm not saying you couldn't do this. I'm just saying it is ambitious for a first real world project.

If it helps, the more you learn, the easier it gets to learn. I'm pretty new to Rails (I've used Ruby before), but after Grails, Groovy, ColdFusion, PHP, C#, Python/Django, a little Scala and Clojure and some ancient history with VisualBasic, C, Smalltalk, Pascal and assembly it's a lot easier to learn than the first time I found myself staring at a "getting started with ...." guide with a tight client deadline!

Best Wishes, Peter