The Ruby on Rails adventure in Unified Infotech broke a few months back. Well, to be precise it took off a year ago. We had the sales team ready and a great business model, but we were missing the developers. Therefore, to launch the technology side of things we started our interview session and collected some of the best Ruby developers in the market.

However, what actually is Ruby on Rails? And why our website development company is venturing for the same like other companies? Well, we have our DevOps Engineer SNG to speak today on RoR, the recent fascination of Team Unified–

Now, what’s RoR or Ruby on Rails?

SNG: It is just a framework to build websites to make it more affordable to create and maintain, simultaneously offering improved performance and faster development.

When Unified started Rails sites?

SNG: Well, a year back, we have started building rails sites and ever since that, we have successfully created rails sites for our global clientele.

Why we call RoR as the “bang for bucks”?

SNG: As a business owner you get many advantages from RoR as it help you to build a website without compromising on flexibility and performance.

Tell, the brief story behind the framework

SNG: Born in 2003 and fathered by David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), along with a software development firm called Basecamp. The story goes like this – DHH was fed up with the use PHP and Java and though to give up programming and this frustration gave birth to ruby on Rails. It is an open source framework which gives the building blocks to build very own applications. This framework is a collection of shortcuts written in Ruby to build websites faster.

Well, Ruby on Rails is not a programming language, but rather a framework to build websites with the combination of languages such as Ruby, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It covers both front-end and the back-end. This means it will help you to build a cool web application without having to rely on someone else to build the back-end or the front-end. A great thing for the Startups, I must say!

A brief technical overview on RoR

SNG: The Ruby projects implement Model-View-Controller, or MVC. MVC splits up the process to get the information faster to the users.

Model – it holds the data for your web applications such as if you have a list of names and the address you can keep it in the model.

View – It displays the data on what users sees and usually in the form of HTML templates.

Controller – It is just like the coach, the one who calls for the shot. This gets the data from the model and sends it further ahead for the view. The controller allows editing, deleting and reading the data.

If I compare the MVC structure to a shop it may sound like this – The model is the backroom or godown to stock materials. The view is the showroom to display the items and the prices. The controller is the salesperson or the shop’s employee who responds to the customer request of getting the item from the shelf.

How one can get started with Ruby in Rails

SNG: In the last few years while installing the Ruby on Rails, we have come across a number of tools called installers. The most popular among them are RailsInstaller or rubyonrails.org. In both the websites, a developer gets the information and desired files to install Ruby on Rails on the computer. You will get your Hello World app running in no time!

Now, tell me the benefits of RoR, which the customer might find interesting

SNG: For a business owner, Ruby on Rails enables three large benefits –

1. Have quicker website launch – The sites, which conventionally took 12 weeks to develop, can now reach its goal in 6 to 7 weeks with RoR. It is time-saving since it is based on few lines of redundant code, reusing the existing components rather than building the site from scratch and use of available plugins.

2. Enables easier changes – After you launch a site, the future modifications to your site can be introduced quickly.

3. It is cost-effective – Since the speed with which Rails site can be built, so the business owners get to spend less to create the main website without compromising on the quality, performance, and scalability.

Which industries can benefit from Ruby on Rails?

SNG: Well, Rails is an ideal solution for industries and verticals such as –

E-commerce – The e-commerce sites of today can benefit hugely from the RoR and their user-friendly features and their modular approaches. We also include features that are easily found on the big-level e-commerce sites such as uploads in bulk, updates for products, photos, custom pricing algorithms, on-the-fly photo resizing and more.

Content Management – If you want to build a CMS website to stuff thousands of articles, news, audio files or database-friendly contents, rails cane be a primary solution for you. It allows users with navigate freely with the ease and flexibility to upload and manage the content effectively.

Customized solutions – Most of our clients seek customized solution as per their business need. They require a novel database to support a new business model. In such cases, we find Rails as the ideal partner to build solutions for them at a fraction of cost and time.

What must the developers do to keep Ruby on Rails from sagging?

SNG: Overuse of a technology might die away the interest of the developer to use a technology or framework just as we have enough with PHP and Java, yet they remain the pioneer of the programming world. Similarly, the key philosophy behind Ruby on Rails is not to repeat yourself. Writing code repeatedly is a bad thing, it will be great if you collaborate with other developers for incorporating fresh ideas.

Ruby is able to make assumptions on what you want to do and how. You do not need spend the extra time tweaking every little detail. Ruby comes pre-loaded with out-of-the-box conventions, which help to speed up development.

Well, at the end I can give a quirky tip to all our developer about using Gems, pieces of pre-packaged code that will give you functionality during your development. You do not have to write the code yourself, it’s there done and finished by another talented developer.

In the end…

After a bright conversation on Ruby on Rails over a cup of coffee, it’s time to wrap up. Web application development services like Ruby on Rails for quicker progress from the start. Team Unified has analyzed that they can develop a site faster and with more precision, but without spending excessive time.

For our developers, Ruby on Rails was great to learn and a breath of fresh air professionally. It is extremely popular among our Startup clients because real-world web applications can be created quickly and easily. However, no one knows the future of programming work, but Ruby is growing strong every day and Ruby community shows that clearly.