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RubyonRailsRapidDevelopment,ReducedBudgets,andResponsiveChange

MaxGarrick

Network&AcademicCompungServicesUniversityofCalifornia,Irvine

mgarrick@uci.edu

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ValueProposion

Economicdownturn Hiringfreeze Sameoldcrustywebapps Sameuserrequests Rails,theagilewebdevelopmentframework,canhelpyourapidlydeliveronthesegrowingcampusneeds

anddevelopersmayevenenjoyusingit!

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RailsHype

AlotofhypesurroundingRails Someexamplesontheweb:

TwierBasecamp43thingsBackpack,ODEO,AListApart,Github,YellowPages,etc

However,fewexamplesofprovenenterpriseRailsappsinhighereducaon

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RailsAppatUCI

IwillshowyouhowUCIbuilta:ScalableFullyredundant

LoadbalancedFeaturerichCampuswideOnlinefacultyrecruitmentapplicaon

BuiltonRailsandinproduconforoveroneyear

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RecruitAppOverview

ItwasDecember,2006

Had:OldPHPwebappforrecruingfaculty,developediniallybyI&CS,tweakedforwideradopon

Had:StaffwithPHP&MySQLexperienceNeeded:Arewrienappthatcouldscaleuptomeettheenrecampussneeds

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ArchitecturalNeed

Oldercode Changestocodebaseweremeconsuminganderrorprone

Lileseparaonofbusinesslogicfrompresentaon

Patchedupsecurityvulnerabilies

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Challenge:Howdowegetthere?

Challenge:Howdoweaccommodatetheseneeds?

Morespecifically:

Howdowedeliveranenterprisewebapp

thatdeliversonourcampussneedsin8

monthsandwithlimitedstaff?

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WeNeededaFramework

Novendororopensourceappsuitedourneeds

Codingfromscratchisslow Weneededamodernframeworktojumpstartourappdevelopment

Weneverusedaframeworkbeforeremember:PHP,December,2006

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WhichFramework?

Weevaluatedafewframeworksthatwouldfitourskillset:

PHP:CakePHP,PHPonTRAX,Zend,etc

SmalldevelopercommuniesatthemeZendframeworkmostpromising,butbetaAlloftheseframeworksemulateRails

Whynotjust

userails?

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WhyNottoUseRails

WeheardmanyreasonswhynottouseRails:

ItdoesntscaleWedonthavetheskills

ItstoonicheItsamovingtargetItsinsecure

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LetstryPHPonTRAX

WestartedlearningPHPonTRAX,trieditoutbeforededicangourselves

BadideaSmallcommunityLiledocumentaonHardtofindanswersaboutconvenonResortedtousingRailsdocstounderstandconvenonsTRAXwasbuiltonTakingtoolongremember:only8months

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WhyRails?

Gooddocumentaon Acve,thrivingcommunity Excellentdesign

MVC,ORM,RESTful,formbuilder,validaon Solidphilosophy

DRY,CoC,automatedtesng

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MVC=ModelViewController

Changesinonecomponentdont

affectothercomponents

Reusemodelsthroughoutyour

applicaon

View

Model

Controller

IncomingRequest

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ORM=ObjectRelaonalMapping

school = School.find_by_name('Computer Science')

print school.departments.count()

school.name = 'Information & Computer Science'

school.save()

Enableseasydatabaseaccess&manipulaon:

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REST=RepresentaonalStateTransfer

CleanURLs:hp://app.uci.edu/biosci/professor/applicaon/123

URLsrepresentresources,(department,applicaon,user,etc)

HTTPGET,PUT,POST,DELETErepresentoperaonsonresources

Canbestateless,challengingforflows/wizards UsefulincombinaonwithAJAX(script.aculo.us)

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CoC&DRY

CoC=ConvenonoverConfiguraon DRY=DontRepeatYourselfIfyournamingschemefollowstheRailsconvenon,youcanquickly

startusingdatabasebackedobjects

GivenaDBtablenameusers:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base

end

Railsmakesiteasytolovetheconvenon;itwillsaveyoualotof

code(=fewermistakes)

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FormBuilder

true, :help => "date

the something happened" %>

true, :help => "the

reference number for this thing" %> true, :label =>

"options", :help => "select something from the list" %>

u.id, :label =>

u.description }}, :label => "including these?", :help => "tick

the whatever boxes are appropriate for thisthing" %> "what was Willis talkin'

about?" %>

"mailing list", :help =>

"can we send you a bunch of spam?" %>

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FormBuilder

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Validaon

CREATE TABLE applicants (

id int(11) unsigned auto_increment

primary key,

username varchar(64) not null,password varchar(64) not null,

created_at timestamp not null,

email varchar(255) not null,

) ENGINE=InnoDB;

class Applicant < ActiveRecord::Basevalidates_presence_of :username, :email

validates_uniqueness_of :username

validates_as_email :email

end

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AutomatedTesng

rSpec:hp://rspec.info/examples.html unit/regressiontesng(model) Integraontesng(controller/views) Selenium,webRAT(fullstack)AutomatedtesngisanunderlyingphilosophyofRails

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Challenges

Railsisnotwithoutitschallenges

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Challenge:RailsVelocity

Railsisrapidlyevolving Thisvelocityofchangeissustainablethroughextensiveautomatedtests

UpgradingRailswillbreakexisngapplicaonsLessofaproblemwithqualityunit&integraontests

UpsidetoRailsupgrades:yourapplicaonsgetusefulnewfeaturesLikebuiltincrosssiterequestforgeryprotecon

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Challenge:LegacySchema

Integrangwithlegacydatacanbeachallenge LegacydatabaseschemaprobablydoesntfitRailsconvenon

Withsomeextracode,yourappscanintegratewithexisngdata

Examples:Exisngdatabasetablenamescampus_id:BIGINT(12)UNSIGNEDZEROFILL

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Challenge:LegacySchema

WecacheUCI'sdirectoryofusersforfast

lookup:

Railsconvenon:nametablesusingpluralform

e.g.:'users'insteadof'directory Railsconvenon:nameprimarykeys'id'

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Challenge:LegacySchema

Soluontodefyingconvenon:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base

self.table_name = "directory"

self.primary_key = "campus_id"

end

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Challenge:LearningtheConvenon

TakesmetolearntheRailsconvenoninially

Onemecost,lasngproducvityenhancement

Helpfulresources:rubyonrails.orghowtosandtutorials,rubypickaxebook,rails2books,

otherpeoplescode

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Challenge:Staffing

FewqualifiedRailsapplicaondevelopers Werecruitbasedonexperiencewithrelatedlanguages&frameworks

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RecruitToday

Stats:10,700totalapplicants

189posions45,513applicantfiles16,408referencefiles

Infrastructure:Loadbalancer:FoundryNetworks

ServerIron

Servers:ThreeRHELboxes

Applicaonstack:Linux,Apache,

MongrelRails,MySQL

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LogicalviewofRecruitArchitecture

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Conclusion

Reliable,campuswideapplicaonscanbebuiltonRails

WeenjoyusingRailsbecauseofitsinnovavedesignandunderlyingphilosophy

AdopngRailssolvesproblemsandcreatessomenewchallenges

WouldwedevelopinRailsagain?Yes!

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Quesons?

MaxGarrickmgarrick@uci.edu/9498247917UCIrvineNetwork&AcademicCompungServices