Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Main Topic: Ruby on Rails

Ruby is an object-oriented programming language developed for the purpose of making programming both enjoyable and fast. While it is a relative newcomer when compared with Perl and Python, it comes with several advantages in the clarity of the syntax, the completeness of it's object oriented functionality, an now in it's easy to use web development framework. Ruby has become a language that can be used in a broad range of fields: from text processing, GUI development, build automation, and CGI scripts to professional, large-scale programs.

This month, MUG member Mark Ramm will be giving us an introduction to Ruby and the web application development framework "Rails", known collectively as "Ruby on Rails". Rails has recently become one of the hottest web development technologies around, promising up to a 10x increase in developer productivity. We'll talk a bit about all the hype surrounding rails, and how well it lives up to that hype in practice and in comparison to other popular web development frameworks.

The bulk of our time will be spent looking at how the Rails framework works. We'll also spend a few min. developing a sample application.

Slides and Links

• http://www.poignantguide.net/ruby/ Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby
• http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8356 Linux Journal Article
• http://www.rubyonrails.org Ruby-on-rails Sample apps, tutorials, howtos and full API docs
• http://compoundthinking.blogspot.com/2005/10/silver-bullet-on-rails.html -- Mark's Blog - Is Ruby on Rails the "Silver Bullet" of web development?

Secondary Topic: New MUG Web server

In August, while several of us were at Linux World, in San Francisco, the MUG web server was compromised. We're pretty sure it was a vulnerability in the PostNUKE content management system. It was several versions out of date, and the system was running a fairly old version of Redhat. So, when we got back into town, we took the machine down, and took advantage of the opportunity to upgrade the hardware, and load a newer version of Linux on the box.

At this months meeting, we'll spend some time going over the new system, what hardware we installed, what software we loaded, and what more we can do, to make the new server useful for every member. This will be a chance for everyone to participate in the process, and we'll have a better, more useful MUG server as a result.

Where:

The MUG meetings are held at:

Farmington Community Library - Main Branch
32737 W. 12 Mile Rd.
Farmington Hills, MI 48334-3302

Click here for a map of the area.

When:

the meetings are on the 2nd Tuesday of each month.

6:00pm	Doors open, registration
6:30pm	Meeting starts, Mug business
6:45pm	Main presentation
8:15pm	2nd Presentation
8:45pm	Meeting adjourns
9:00pm	Dinner at a local establishment

• RubyOnRails.odp: Presentation Slides

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