1) Run ruby on rails using their default webrick HTTP server.

2) Run ruby in a framework such as Sinatra using a web server such as Nginx and a view engine such as HAML.

3) Set yourself up with Heroku Ruby hosting platform and develop from there.

There’s an interesting point on this stack over flow thread. Given that the majority of websites are now deployed in cloud environments, perhaps you want a webserver that performs better? If so, I can recommend Nginx as an alternative to webrick. It’s easy to install and configure. It also has some similarities with Apache webserver in terms of virtual configuration files for sites. I’m currently serving PHP from fast-cgi via Nginx, it works well!

Server performance aside, the second option with Sinatra is a little harder to get set up. As this requires many ruby gems, it may be harder to install and get started. Tho, in the end, I’d personally like to understand all aspects of the stack prior to development.

As for the third option, I’ve not tried it myself. Tho it seems like a great idea for a company to bind developers to a platform by means of package dependency. For me, this is both good and bad. You’re bound to them as a provider, yet some companies like that!

If you’ve any preference or experience with any arrangement, please comment and let me know!

Given a short code demo, it looks very flexible. It can be used to build things extremely quickly. In just a few key strokes, a model, view and controller is automatically created in the file system. Another command will quickly update the database to describe the properties of your newly created entity in its own table.

This bares some similarities with the PHP framework Symfony. You can auto generate the entities of your system in a very similar way. But I am a PHP freak, why am I so interested in this? It’s always good to have another arrow to your bow. Also, I think it’s an important message to those who want to try out programming for web applications. Perhaps students or in some cases, people who have been stuck using classic VB for the past 5 years!

Some may say that using the Ruby on Rails framework the auto generation of code is unwise. Unwieldy and unmanageable and I would tend to agree with them. However, perhaps it has some uses for prototyping an idea or a technical draft. If the specification or idea keeps changing, then its a perfect match. I am not sure if you can do this but, since its heavy on MVC, components of the system can be replaced (if necessary) with whatever means necessary.

It’s meant to be easier to develop with it in Linux and Mac than Windows. Saying that there’s a package for the Aptana editing suite for Windows that seems well suited to Ruby. There’s an online demo of Ruby, somewhere on the Internet, I will post it as soon as I remember where it is.

Perhaps in a few years, I will read this again on a site that I built in Ruby, years from now. But for now, I don’t think I will start learning Ruby just yet. There’s plenty of other things I would like to do first, that could change.