RUBY ON RAILS

Ruby on Rails (RoR), also referred to as Rails, is a full-stack framework written in Ruby programming language and it is available for multiple operating systems such as Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. The framework is based on the model-view-controller (MVC) pattern and it is shipped with a rich toolkit covering core features regarding both frontend and backend concerns.

Rails is built on a set of predefined patterns, libraries and frameworks that allow beginners and professionals to quickly implement different functionality such as sending mail or reading data from an SQL database. For example, Rails implements an object–relational mapper (ORM) pattern called Active Record, which gives developers the ability to interact with a database using Ruby objects.

WHAT IS RUBY ON RAILS USED FOR?

We can use Rails to create web applications and application programming interfaces (APIs),?including API-only applications wherein the Rails application only acts as the back end. We can also create applications wherein Rails manages both the back end and front end.?Since the release of Basecamp, the first Ruby on Rails application, Rails has been used by many companies and developers to create everything from traditional websites to software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications. This includes companies such as GitHub, Shopify, Zendesk and many others.

Rails’ Active Record is a core part of Rails MVC pattern and is responsible for handling the model behavior. For example, Rails’ Active Record implements the four CRUD operations: create, read, update, delete. Another built-in Rails functionality is the application pre-loader called Spring. Spring ensures the developer can add modifications to the application and automatically see the changes without having to restart background processes.

Rails also gives developers the opportunity to extend the framework with Ruby gems, which is managed by Bundler. Bundler can be configured by a file called Gemfile that specifies download source and the application’s specific Ruby gems.