Thanks, I’m glad you’re finding the site helpful! You got it – Ruby needs to be installed to run the various files (with a .rb extension).
Unfortunately, Ruby is not as popular as other languages (like Perl, Java or PHP) and may not be installed by default. Some hosting companies pride themselves in being “Rails ready”, which you may have to ask for if on a shared server.
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Hi,
I’ve had SO much hassle trying to install RoR…I’m an amateur (i.e. newbie) trying to learn what I keep reading is an Agile tool. However, I can’t find a decent packaged installation, which includes everything I need. I’ve now got about 5 different versions of RoR, which I fear maybe adding to my problems.
Any help appreciated!
Hi Chris, I would start with Instantrails – it has all the components in a single directory. Good luck!
Thanks for the concise and clear articles. I have a small correction for you: YAML stands for “YAML Ain’t a Markup Language” (http://www.yaml.org/).
Keep up the great work!
Hi Brookr, appreciate the info – I just changed the article :).
I really appreciate this article. I have spent a few days and lots of Tylenol trying to get it going. Luckily, I’m working with someone who is having much more luck than me, but I have a lot of studying to do. I bookmarked your site and look forward to reading more.
I just wish I found your site in the beginning! Great writing, easy to read, and concise. THANKS!!!
Thanks angieh, glad it’s coming in useful (and happy you’re enjoying the site)! Yes, Rails is nice but has a lot of trial-and-error – good luck with your project :).
[…] 3. “Starting Ruby on Rails - what I wish I knew” - http://betterexplained.com/articles/starting-ruby-on-rails-what-i-wish-i-knew/ […]
[…] Check out this great post about Starting Ruby on Rails: What I Wish I Knew. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Ruby on RailsRails Is Not A LanguageRuby on Rails tutorialsMerb: Ruby on Rails Meets the Enterprise […]
I just came across your site -> Wonderful advice and seeing this makes me feel great as I have tackled many of these issues before actually learning Rails.
It is so useful for a newcomer to actually go about and find useful info and read what others say before getting their hands dirty…
One other thing i find very cool lately is the Ruby console: ruby script/console - In Windows 
This way you can check for errors, find, sort add stuff in your database.
A cool tool for an inspiring “someone”!!!
Oh about Instant Rails => Great little tool, but my opinion is going the manual way with the sql adapter(on windows). Easy as pie to install (first install ruby) then:
> gem install rails capistrano mysql mongrel mongrel_cluster
[…] Starting Ruby on Rails: What I Wish I Knew […]
@Ahad: Thanks for the comment! Really glad you enjoyed the article, it was fun writing about how to overcome the initial roadblock.
I agree about the console – it’s one of my favorite parts of rails. Debugging web apps can be such a pain, and the console makes it a snap to poke around the live running site.
Re: instantrails, I still think the single .zip file is easier (just extract and go) but the real setup is more useful for a production server (probably on some Linux distro).
Excellent write-up! I actually started off with RoR and then pretty much gave up and was looking into CI lately. Wasn’t getting satisfied with the spaghetti code structure and just started thinking about getting back to RoR, and this article came right on time. Thanks for the points well touched.
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amazing changes
[…] ★ "Ruby on Rails is an elegant, compact and fun way to build web applications. Unfortunately, many gotchas await the new programmer. Now that I have a few rails projects under my belt, here’s my shot at sparing you the suffering I experienced when first getting started." […]
This is huge help as I struggle with this stuff all the time. Thanks very much for the informative post!