Accidental Technologist

Since taking over the Instant Rails project from Curt Hibbs, I have been able to get Instant Rails 2.0 out the door before the end of 2007, not by much but it did happen.   Thank you to everyone who gave me support and to readers for the comments.  So, I wanted to take a moment to let everyone know what is coming with Instant Rails in the near term.

I have gotten over the learning curve of the whole build and update process on RubyForge, it was pretty painless.  Those guys over there do a great job!  I have received a fair amount of feedback on the current release and I have stepped back and thought about them and how to proceed.

I am planning a introduce a second version of Instant Rails 2.0, to be called Instant Rails 2.0 Lite.  This version will similar to the standard version but will have the following removed:

• Apache
• MySQL
• phpMyAdmin
• PHP

This will:

• Bring the size of the download way down
• Bring the size on disk way down
• Allow users who already have MySQL and/or Apache to run Instant Rails 2.0 Lite without conflicts.

Access to the command-line will be improved to make it easier so users can go from running Instant Rails to running a Ruby application very quickly.

Instant Rails 2.0 Lite will include the following:

• Ruby 1.8.6-26
• Rails 2.0.2
• Mongrel
• SQLite3
• RubyGems
• Rake
• Capistrano
• CookBook Sample Application with Rails 2.0.2 & SQLite3 support.

I hope this makes some users happy.  The standard version of Instant Rails 2.0 will remain the same, supported and updated.  I think two versions will cover more users and the new version will have a smaller, lighter footprint.  When will this happen?  Well, not sure yet but I would like to get the leg work done of the next couple weeks and posted in early February.  I am being conservative, if I can make it happen sooner, I will.

Please let me know what you think.

Instant Rails 2.0 was featured on Episode 12 of the Rails Envy Podcast, this past week.

Thanks to Jason and Gregg for the mention.   Everyone should check out the podcast for the latest news on what’s going on in the Rails world on a weekly basis.

I have been working hard on getting the latest and greatest components of Instant Rails 2.0 put together into a  coherent release to RubyForge.  It has been a bit more time consuming bringing it all together, learning the components of the project, learning more about Subversion than I knew already as well as how the whole process of working with RubyForge really happens. 

Being part of the open source community feels good and it feels good giving back to something I am passionate about.

It was very smooth for the most part, but trying not to mess up what already worked is what I am hoping for, so since this is my first work on an open source project from a commiter’s role, please be kind.  If there issues please submit them to the Instant Rails list or as a comment on this blog post.

Instant Rails 2.0 includes:

• Ruby 1.8.6 Patch Level 111 with tons of bug fixes and new updated gems
• Ruby on Rails 2.0.2
• RubyGems 1.0.1
• Rake 0.8.0
• Mongrel 1.1.2
• SQLite3

SQLite3 is included in this release since Rails 2.0.2 uses it by default.  Users should notice the Cookbook example uses the latest Rails 2.0.2 changes and has been updated to use SQLite3.

Instant Rails 2.0 can be downloaded from RubyForge now, please take a look at the Release Notes to see all the updates.

I will have some additional updates to the project over the next weeks.  I plan to post want I am going to update and hopefully I will receive the kind of feedback my readers have been providing.  Thank you all!

Since I took over the Instant Rails project a short time ago I have been working on learning the structure of the project and figuring out what to put in the next release and beyond. The next release will be Instant Rails 2.0. The reason for the jump is primarily because Ruby on Rails itself has jumped to be 2.0, so why not keep it parallel.

Instant Rails 1.7 Components

The current version includes the following core components:

• [Instant Rails Manager] 1.7
• [Ruby 1.8.6] (from the [One-Click Ruby Installer] 1.8.6-25)
• [Ruby on Rails] 1.2.3
• [Apache] 1.3.33
• [MySQL] 5.0.27
• [MySQL/Ruby] 2.7.3 (native driver)
• [Mongrel] 1.0.1
• [phpMyAdmin] 2.10.0.2

It contains the following sample applications:

• Cookbook app from [ONLamp.com article]
• [Typo] 2.6.0

And a few ancillary applications which some of Instant Rails depends on:

• [PHP] 4.3.10
• [One-Click Ruby Installer] 1.8.6-25
• [cmdparse] 2.0.2
• [HighLine] 1.2.7

Instant Rails 2.0 Components

The current version includes the following core components:

• [Instant Rails Manager] 2.0
• [Ruby 1.8.6] (from the [One-Click Ruby Installer] 1.8.6-26 Patch Level 111)
• [Ruby on Rails] 2.0.2
• [Capistrano] 2.1
• [Apache] 1.3.33
• [MySQL] 5.0.27
• [MySQL/Ruby] 2.7.3 (native driver)
• [Mongrel] 1.1.2
• [phpMyAdmin] 2.10.0.2

It contains the following sample applications:

• Cookbook app from [ONLamp.com article]
• [Typo] 2.6.0

And a few ancillary applications which some of Instant Rails depends on:

• [PHP] 4.3.10
• [One-Click Ruby Installer] 1.8.6-26
• [cmdparse] 2.0.2
• [HighLine] 1.4.0

Instant Rails 2.0 and Beyond

I have chatted with several people who would like to see various features and components upgraded or added to the project. I can’t see with any certainty what components might be added but I can say I will do my best to add what people want but remain keeping the project light and stable. Some of the items users wanted to see are:

• PHP 5
• SQL Server Support
• IIS Support
• SubVersion
• SQLite3

Developers should take a look at the release notes for Ruby 1.8.6-26, which includes updates which provide support for running Rails applications under IIS7. The important components are FastCGI and ruby-fcgi. It should also be noted that Rails 2.0.2 uses SQLite3 as its default database and therefore when creating Rails applications under Instant Rails, the command looks like this:

rails -d mysql myapp

Should SQLite3 be included in the next release of Instant Rails now that SQLite3 is the default database? I tend to think this would be the right thing to do but features like phpMyAdmin become a bit irrelevant being a MySQL tool. I have found a tool called SQLiteManager which is a web-based admin tool for SQLite3 databases. Anyone familiar with it? It appears to be a bit dated. I am planning at looking to upgrade to Ruby 1.9 when available as well as at upgrading to the latest version of MySQL and Apache, but these will have to wait a bit since they work great just the way they are today. The sample Typo 2.6 installation could use an upgrade to Typo 4.x as well. I would like to continue to hear what people would like to see, please email me at [rbazinet] at [gmail.com] or reply to this post.

Technorati Tags: Instant Rails,Ruby on Rails

I have been a long-time user of Instant Rails to write Ruby on Rails applications on Windows.   What I like most about Instant Rails is its level of isolation, where nothing is installed on my local computer as a service or anything permanent.  I can just take it with me and run it anywhere.

A short time ago Curt Hibbs, the founder of the Instant Rails project on Rubyforge, decided he didn’t have the time to continue the project to the level it deserved.  He announced the project would not longer be updatee and users should look to another Ruby stack on Windows, named BitNami RubyStack. 

After trying BitNami I came away feeling like I had stepped back to something not as polished as Instant Rails.  I have no ill feeling about Bitnami, I hope they do very well.  I have been spoiled by the way Instant Rails runs isolated along with its nice user interface to control services and my Rails applications.

I decided to contact Curt and see what the story was with closing down the project and if I could do anything to help maintain it.  Curt explained he was simply too busy with work and real life to maintain the project any longer and it was as simple as that.  I thought about it a bit and offered to take the project over continue with this legacy.  Curt was happy to have someone keep the project going.

So, now what?

Immediate Plans

This is my first foray into an open source project so please be patient.  Anyone with advice on maintaining an open source project, it would be appreciated.  For the short term my goals are not lofty, I plan on:

• Learning the layout of the Instant Rails project
• Inventory what is currently part of the project
• Understand how the project was administered so I can successfully manage to continue the project

Short-term Plans

In the next few weeks I want to be able to get a release out to RubyForge.  I would like to at least provide and update to the following:

• Ruby on Rails 2.0.1, or newer if bugs are patched between now and then
• Ruby 1.8.6 Patch Level 111

Longer-term Plans

I have used Instant Rails and love how it works.  I am not going to make any large changes with the project, I want to keep the functionality the way it is.  Curt has done a great job and there is no need to change for the sake of change.

I plan to make some updates to some of the packages to get them up-to-date beyond the ones above:

• RubyGems
• MySQL
• Mongrel
• Rake
• Ruby 1.9

Of course I will fix any bugs I can along the way.

I have been asked about adding some things to the current build such as Capistrano 2.1 among some others. What would users like to see?   I can’t really add any and all gems to releases, it has to be by consensus.  As always users can just add gems themselves and customize as much as they want.

I will be posting updates here as things progress and I get other ideas or come to a fork in the road and need feedback.  Please come here for informational updates on Instant Rails.  Release updates will continue to be in the RubyForge project page.

On the heels of the Rails 1.1 release, Instant Rails 1.1 was released. 

For those of you who don’t know, Instant Rails allows Windows users to have a complete environment to develop and test Ruby and Rails code without having to install and configure each necessary component on your own.  Instant Rails provides:

• Ruby 1.8.4
• Rails 1.1
• Apache
• MySQL

All are configured and ready to go.  I have been using this environment on my Windows systems for quite a few months now and the support has been great.  The environment encapsulates everything so well that there is no interference with any other applications to be concerned with.

Technorati Tags : Ruby, Ruby on Rails

I found this great tutorial on getting started with Instant Rails. I used this tutorial to get started. It is a great summary of all the parts and pieces tossed into Instant Rails, what they are and how to know your way around them. I highly recommend this as a great place to start. Technorati Tags: Ruby on Rails, Instant Rails

Over the last couple months I have been learning Ruby and Ruby on Rails, the Ruby framework from 37Signals.? Searching the web for these technologies turns up a ton of sources for everything Ruby and the cult like following of Ruby on Rails. For someone, like myself, just getting into Ruby on Rails there is a great Squidoo lense by Paul Robinson.? Squidoo is a web site that lets someone with some domain knowledge in an area to setup a portal-like page of this knowledge.? I found Paul’s lense while surfing for Rails information. Installing and configuring a system to run Rails can take some time to understand all the pieces needed to get up and running, which varies whether you are running Windows, Linux or Mac OSX.? The main pieces are:

• Ruby (1.8.4 is current as of this writing)
• RubyGems (used to install “packages” of functionality)
• Rails (1.0 is current as of this writing)
• A database (MySQL, PostgreSQL or SQLite.? I am not sure if MS SQL Server is supported but I am sure someone has or will figure it out)
• Web Server (Apache, WebBrick (Ruby built-in webserver), lighthtd, LiteSpeed, IIS)

I downloaded and installed all the pieces on both Windows and Linux.? The process is not smooth for the newbie but I found a great package called Instant Rails from Curtis Hibbs.? Instant Rails packages up all of items above into one download and puts it all in one directory with NO INSTALL, you just click the InstantRails.exe and you are on your way.? As of now it only works on Windows but the web site says there are versions coming for Linux and BSD. I have started to go through some tutorials and using the Instant Rails environment for my work.? So far….two thumbs up.? Technorati Tags: Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Instant Rails