I have been practicing Ruby and I thing I now know at least the basic
syntax of the language and I would like to start practicing more and
since I usually create websites as a hobby I was wondering if I could
use ROR to practice my Ruby skills.
I know what RoR is (I think), it’s a Ruby frame work where you can
create web applications. I usually create static websites for sites that
won’t be updated regularly and WordPress for sites where the owner wants
more control over the content and I was wondering if RoR would somehow
replace the need for WordPress by creating a small user interface where
they can login and update pages or even generate new ones.
1- Is it common in the RoR world to create a small CMS to replace the
need of WordPress or Joomla?
2- How difficult would it be to create a SIMPLE CMS where you can login
and modified content?
3- Why would you learn RoR if you are not planning on making
sophisticated or complex apps?
1- Is it common in the RoR world to create a small CMS to replace the
need of WordPress or Joomla?
If what you need is indeed a CMS, then it's common to just use one off
the shelf, rather than waste time reinventing the wheel. I'm not
really that familiar with them, but the only RoR one that springs to
mind is Radiant.
However, RoR is aimed at a somewhat different space. It's mainly for
database-backed web sites that are too complex to shoehorn into a CMS.
2- How difficult would it be to create a SIMPLE CMS where you can login
and modified content?
Very easy. That's just a couple notches above a blogging system --
which is one of the standard tutorials.
3- Why would you learn RoR if you are not planning on making
sophisticated or complex apps?
Hmmm. Maybe because you're going to make *a lot* of simple apps? RoR
is very good for getting something started quickly.
4- What would be the most common use of RoR?
Any kind of database-backed web site. Anything from Twitter (whose
*back* end is now on Scala, but IIUC is still using RoR on the front
end), to trivial "CRUD" apps (Create, Read, Update, and Delete some
kind of record), to very complicated things with dozens of database
tables. For instance, I just whipped up The Decider
(http://thedecider.herokuapp.com), a simple decision support tool that
uses only six database tables. (Don't judge by its looks, I haven't
even started polishing the UI, just got the functionality out there.)
RoR made it very easy to create them, including the relationships
between them.
