As Ruby on Rails has emerged as a popular agile web development framework, the Beta release of Rails 3.0 features an evolution of the platform. Whether you are a dedicated PHP developer interested in Rails or have actively used the framework, it is important to understand Rails 3.0 in the context of the larger web development framework. As impressive as version 2.3 was, 3.0 marks a natural evolution in the agile framework that extends and simplifies the development process with Ruby.

Streamlining the process of development, class dependencies are now properly included in the framework, making it much easier to integrate common Javascript libraries such as jQuery with helper classes. To understand the future directions of web frameworks, independent of your preferred coding language, the inner workings of Rails 3.0 can provide deeper insights into the development process. Rather than having to re-write your code base from scratch, the Ruby team built a dependency system known as Bundler, which quickly gets your installation up to speed with the latest framework standards in Rails 3.

While the core Rails libraries remain independent and can operate on their own, the management software can simplify the process or allow you to work on your own development path. As we look to future trends in web development in general, Rails 3 provides a roadmap for understanding broader trends in Model View Controller (MVC) frameworks.

How Rails 3 modernizes the MVC Model

Many developers struggle with understanding layers in an MVC framework, and Rails can help provide insights into the runtime status of various processes. Rails’ 3.0 integrated instrumentation features allow developers to benefit from the rich sources of information that logs can provide during testing and development.

Designed to streamline the entire development cycle, Rails continues its path toward a production-centric framework. In the desire to move toward a flexible development platform, Rails itself has become modular which is one of the most significant shifts in development frameworks in recent years. The core elements within the Rails framework such as Records, Controllers and Mailers have become independent extensions, allowing for easier framework customization based upon your requirements.

Optimization with Ruby on Rails

Increased demands on modern databases for web development require ongoing optimization of database queries. As a result, the Rails’ Active Record module has the ability to refine queries before they are built within SQL itself. With an intermediate step you can define sub-classes, allowing you to add conditions on the queries which can significantly improve load times.

If you look at a history of modern web development, both PHP and Rails point squarely toward a tighter integration with JavaScript and a more object oriented approach. With Rails 3.0, the applications themselves are an object within class Rails::Application, allowing you to centralize all your configuration parameters in a single file, config/application.rb.

With the active beta release of Rails 3.0, the Ruby on Rails team is focused on further refining libraries for development. The core of the framework is now more flexible and stable, helping Rails to emerge from a favorite of startups to an enterprise-level framework built to scale.

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In the last four years, we have seen how Ruby on Rails (RoR) built on, and accelerated the wider acceptance of, the object-oriented Ruby language. Consequently, the Ruby/RoR combo has become a workhorse of such independent software providers as Nashua (NH)-based HyTech Professionals (www.hytechpro.com). Though busy as the proverbial bee, the development teams there gave me a peek at apps they use to produce more than a hundred web-facing projects year after year.

As early as 2005, Ruby on Rails validated the language by making available an open-source framework for executing database-driven web applications. Its sparse architecture requirement, very lean code and easy access to support for PHP or Ajax, for example, made prototyping easy and quick.

Since then, the HyTech Professionals developers have nabbed one “killer app” after another to broaden the utility of Ruby on Rails. One of the first was the ActiveState Komodo integrated development environment that, beginning with version 3.5, provided edit, debug and testing support for the elegance of Ruby and Ruby on Rails code.

Another very useful app is “ModelSecurity”, a generator that reminds Ruby on Rails developers to write access control for the data model of a Web site. This makes for security defense in depth since architect developers very often program security only into controllers and views.

Fast-forward to last year and we find that FiveRuns quietly acknowledged the enterprise inroads Ruby on Rails has made by writing monitoring functions for RoR in its enterprise management and monitoring suite. All this means is that developers gain diagnostic visibility into the behavior of production-time versions.

All in all, developers continue to value the fact that Ruby on Rails gets a project up and going fast and has capabilities aplenty for building fairly complex Web sites.

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If you are looking for the best Ruby on Rails content management system, then Radiant should be on your short list of options. Radiant provides all the facilities of a content management system in a very easy and powerful way. It can help you by creating a nice website for personal or organizational purpose. It provides the foundation for an easy to maintain a website when it is developed. Radiant is not a PHP based CMS; it is written in Ruby and utilizes the Ruby on Rails framework. It is very efficient for developing websites. Usually, smaller companies without large amounts of content, need for document management and/or integrated workflow use Radiant as the content management system for their purposes.

You can add additional functionality by adding extensions. Extensions enhance the capabilities of the website and make it more flexible and easy to use.

Radiant includes all the features of a good content management system. It consists of a simple administrative interface which is quite good for beginners. The three key components of the administrative panel are page, snippets and layouts. It looks similar to three functions used in blog software, but it possesses more functionality and enhancements when compared to blog software. Different pages are managed through the “pages” part, content is managed through “snippet” part and the website designs and layouts are managed in the “layout” part.

Radiant also comes with a macro language called Radius which works in the form of custom tags. It provides a variety of useful dynamic functionality; example: manage parent-child page relationships and inclusion of content from a snippet. The feature of page caching is also available in Radiant content management system.

With all these features, it is possible to create an easily maintainable website which will solve the purpose of personal website. As it is open source, you can use the content management system without spending your money. So if you want to use a simple, easy to use, ruby based content management system, then you should choose the Radiant Content management system.

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Gregg Pollack and Jason Seifer from RailsEnvy.com do some Ruby on Rails commercials in the same style of the Mac vs PC ads.