How to start programming in rails 3, in windows

I really, really liked rails 3. So much, I tried really hard to use it in another project… and failed.

Well, among other things, most people use Microsoft Windows out there. And they find extremely difficult unix-style installations. For me, it’s natural the solution of installing libssl-dev and rebuilding ruby when “gem install” fails because an error ocurrs in net/https. But normal people don’t.

So, if you are running Windows this howto is for you.

Installing rails 3

Because Windows doesn’t have a system wide ruby installation (like Mac OS or Linux), it doesn’t make sense to use something atop like RVM. We just need to install ruby 1.9.2 and then go up.

Go to http://rubyforge.org/projects/rubyinstaller/ and download latest ruby release, I’m using ruby 1.9.2-p0.

Just follow the wizard, but in the 3rd screen select “Add Ruby to PATH”.

Ruby will be installed inside C:\Ruby192. To check everything is ok, open a console and run “ruby -v”, you should see “ruby 1.9.2p0 (2010-08-18) [i386-mingw32]“.

Code block

C:\> ruby -v
ruby 1.9.2p0 (2010-08-18) [i386-mingw32]

C:\> gem install rails
C:\> rails -v
Rails 3.0.3

Creating & running a test application

Now create a new application

Code block

C:\> rails new testapp && cd testapp

And start the server. It should fail (like in unix) because sqlite3-ruby is not installed:

Code block

C:\testapp> rails s
Could not find gem 'sqlite3-ruby (&>= 0, runtime)' in any of the gem sources.
Try running `bundle install`.

Instead of running “gem install foo bar”, rails 3 comes with bundle: when you get a new project, run bundle to check dependencies and install missing gems. You can specify your own dependencies in the “Gemfile”.

Code block

C:\testapp> bundle

If you try to run the server again, you’ll get an error:

Go to http://www.sqlite.org/download.html and below “Precompiled Binaries For Windows” download both sqlite-3*.zip and sqlitedll-3*.zip the “Precompiled Binaries For Windows” (I’m using sqlite-3_7_3.zip and sqlitedll-3_7_3.zip).

Extract all files (sqlite3.exe, sqlite3.dll and sqlite3.def) to the C:\Ruby192\bin folder. Now finally the server starts.

Code block
   
C:\testapp> rails s

[2010-11-19] 06:48:58] INFO  WEBrick::HTTPSERVER#start: pid=1836 port=3000

Check http://localhost:3000/.

Installing git

Download msysgit. I’m using Git-1.7.3.1-preview20101002.exe.

On the 4th screen, check everything:

On the 6th screen, select “Run Git from the Windows Command Prompt”:

On the 7th screen, select “Checkout as-is, commit Unix-style line endings”:

Once msysgit is installed, open a new cmd console and configure your name and email

Code block

C:\testapp> git config --global user.name "Juan Perez"
C:\testapp> git config --global user.email "juan.perez@example.com"

You can get help about any git command by typing the command and –help:

Code block

C:\testapp> git config --help

Git will be really important later, don’t skip this step. Do your first commit:

Code block

C:\testapp> git init
C:\testapp> git add .
C:\testapp> git commit -m "project started"

Create a new CRUD model, controller, view

Rails is based on MVC and “scaffolding” is what they call to create a simple controller, model and view for a very basic and useful CRUD template.

Code block

C:\testapp> rails g scaffold product title:string desc:string price:integer
C:\testapp> rake db:migrate

Now go to http://localhost:3000/products/ and try it. Don’t forget to commit:

Code block

C:\testapp> git add .
C:\testapp> git commit -m "created product mantainer"

Upload your app to heroku

This is really, really cool, you can upload and update your app for free in heroku using nothing but the command line!

First, upload your ssh keys to your home folder (something like C:\Users\Aldrin\.ssh\). If you don’t have a key, press the right button on the testapp folder and select “GIT Bash Here”.

Create your key with the following command:

Code block

C:\testapp> ssh-keygen.exe -t dsa -C "juan.perez@example.com"

Now, register in http://api.heroku.com/signup … After creating your account and uploading your ssh keys, install heroku and create a new app:

Code block

C:\testapp> gem install heroku
C:\testapp> heroku create
Uploading ssh public key C:\Users\test/.ssh/id_dsa.pub
Creating electric-sunset-57.... done
Created http://electric-sunset-57.heroku.com/ | git@heroku.com:electric-sunset-57.git
Git remote heroku added
C:\testapp> git push heroku master

The last line is all the magic: whenever you push to the heroku repository, your app is redeployed… deployment has never been so easy!

Go to your application url (like in http://electric-sunset-57.heroku.com/products/). It should fail because we need to setup a database in heroku servers… You can upload your current development sqlite3 database with:

Code block

C:\testapp> gem install taps
C:\testapp> heroku db:push

If still fails, you can check heroku logs:

Code block

C:\testapp> heroku logs

I’ve found out that heroku didn’t find sqlite3 (which is not be available in their production environment), so I’ve changed the Gemfile to this:

Code block

group :development, :test do
  gem 'sqlite3-ruby', :require => 'sqlite3'
end

Commit your changes and push them to heroku.

Code block

C:\testapp> git add .
C:\testapp> git commit -m 'bugfix: sqlite3 only in dev,test'
C:\testapp> git push heroku master

Now check http://deep-planet-58.heroku.com/products/. For removing the app in heroku:

Code block

C:\testapp> heroku destroy --app deep-planet-58

Bonus: TextMate like editor

Many tutorials you’ll see use TextMate for programming in rails, which is only available in Mac OS X. Try the following alternatives:

First, download java for windows. Now, install redcar (this will take a while…):

Code block

C:\testapp> gem install redcar
C:\testapp> redcar install
C:\testapp> redcar .

You may run redcar directly from C:\Ruby192\bin\redcar.bat .

That’s all for now.