Starting a rails project

This is just a quick reminder about how to start a standard rails project. The assumption is that rvm already installed on an Ubuntu machine (I'm using Natty).

• mkdir projects
• cd projects
• rails new project_name -T
• echo "rvm --create use 1.9.2@project_name" > .rvmrc
• cd project_name
• (agree to the use of the .rvmrc file)

My default Gemfile at the moment takes into account that I'll be creating a general API and will be using rspec (I tend to use rspec for integration testing too). It includes spork and autotest for a cool autotest environment.

• (create the following Gemfile)
• gem install bundler
• bundle install

source 'http://rubygems.org'

gem 'rails', '3.0.1'

gem 'sqlite3-ruby', '1.2.5', :require => 'sqlite3'

gem 'gravatar_image_tag', '0.1.0'

gem 'will_paginate', '3.0.pre2'

group :development do

gem 'rspec-rails', '2.0.1'

gem 'annotate-models', '1.0.4'

gem 'faker', '0.3.1'

end

group :test do

gem 'rspec', '2.0.1'

gem 'webrat', '0.7.1'

gem 'spork', '0.9.0.rc4'

gem 'libnotify', '0.3.0'

gem 'factory_girl_rails', '1.0'

end

Add the inital state of the framework to git. Take the opportunity to create a project at github and upload your public key (so that you can push up the project).

• git init
• git add .
• git commit -am "Initial commit of Rails framework"
• git remote add origin git@github.com:username/project_name.git
• git push origin master

Then create a project at heroku (goto heroku.com and sign up) - you may need to install the heroku gem (gem install heroku)

• heroku create
• git push heroku master
• heroku rename project-name #you can't use _ so, I tend to use - instead here

Finally, it's time to get rspec installed

• rails generate rspec:install

Get some generate setup done for static pages:

• remove public/index.html
• add public/stylesheet/blueprint
• add public/stylesheet/custom.css #see rails3tutorial
• rails generate controller Pages home contact about

Add some autotesting

• sudo apt-get install libnotify-bin
• echo "require 'autotest/growl'" >> .autotest
• spork --bootstrap
• edit spec/spec_helper.rb to contain the contents of Listing 3.13 from the Rails3Tutorial Book
• echo "--drb" >> .rspec
• create /usr/local/bin/runautotest

spork&
sleep 10s
autotest

• sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/runautotest