Rails - Oct 2006 - beginner questions

Lo there,

I am wanting to redo our company website in rails ( it now uses php ).
I have the Agile book on the way here from Amazon. I am really new at
this, and had a couple of questions.

First off, we run three websites off of our apache server at work (
debian linux ). I know that ror can use apache instead of webbrick as a
server. Is it possible to run more than one rails app from one server
using virtual hosting (name based).

Next. We do a lot of intense graphing apps that are written in php
using a class called JpGraph. How well do rails and php play together ?
or would it be worth it to use a ruby charting and graphing app ?

lastly, I know that there are certain conventions that rails looks for
in how it uses a database. Our tables follow none of these. Would i
have to restructure my SQL tables to make use of rails? I mean, i know
that i can follow our own conventions ( which stink ) but will that
prove a configuration nightmare ? Would it be best to just restructure
everything according to rails conventions ?

I guess thats it. The reason i want to use rails is because I have just
started getting into ruby, and rails looks like a really cool way to
handle our web front end. Many many of our scripts that we use to run
the site now are php and need to be revamped anyway. I started building
the site about a year ago whilst learning php.

Anyway, please, any tips would be greatly appreciated.

thanks.
sk


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Hi nephish,

Let me just share some experiences.

* It is fully possible to run your different rails apps behind an
apache server. I would recommend you to set up one mongrel server (or a
cluster of mongrel servers, read about it on the webpage) per
application, and point your different Vhosts to those server ports.
Apache dont have native rails support as a module, so the best way to
go is mongrel in my opinion. There are other options like Fastcgi to
run your app, but I myself only had bad experiences with it.

* There should definatly be some ruby script for your graph needs. Im
not an expert in the area, but i use FusionCharts on a site to generate
nice looking flash graphs. If you dont want to involve flash, there
should be some ruby script to generate graphics. Look at RMagick, but i
reckon thats at a too low level for what your looking for.

* I really, really recommend applying the Rails conventions on your
database structure. It will for sure spare you lots of time later on
with all the magic thats involved. I cant imagine my daily work today
if it wasnt for the rails convention-related help i get :)

Best of luck,

Richard Johansson

nephish wrote:
> Lo there,
>
> I am wanting to redo our company website in rails ( it now uses php ).
> I have the Agile book on the way here from Amazon. I am really new at
> this, and had a couple of questions.
>
> First off, we run three websites off of our apache server at work (
> debian linux ). I know that ror can use apache instead of webbrick as a
> server. Is it possible to run more than one rails app from one server
> using virtual hosting (name based).
>
> Next. We do a lot of intense graphing apps that are written in php
> using a class called JpGraph. How well do rails and php play together ?
> or would it be worth it to use a ruby charting and graphing app ?
>
> lastly, I know that there are certain conventions that rails looks for
> in how it uses a database. Our tables follow none of these. Would i
> have to restructure my SQL tables to make use of rails? I mean, i know
> that i can follow our own conventions ( which stink ) but will that
> prove a configuration nightmare ? Would it be best to just restructure
> everything according to rails conventions ?
>
> I guess thats it. The reason i want to use rails is because I have just
> started getting into ruby, and rails looks like a really cool way to
> handle our web front end. Many many of our scripts that we use to run
> the site now are php and need to be revamped anyway. I started building
> the site about a year ago whilst learning php.
>
> Anyway, please, any tips would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> thanks.
> sk

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nephish wrote:
> Next. We do a lot of intense graphing apps that are written in php
> using a class called JpGraph. How well do rails and php play together ?
> or would it be worth it to use a ruby charting and graphing app ?
Gruff is a popular graphing library for Ruby. It relies on ImageMagick
and RMagick at the backend.

http://nubyonrails.com/pages/gruff

Chris


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Hey thanks,
I had never heard of mongrel before, looks good, and simple.
And, since i need to restructure so much of our stuff anyway, i think
more and more about redoing it rails style.
I still would like to keep some of our php scripts, unless they will
create a conflict.

thanks for the tips, a lot.

sk

On Oct 5, 8:08 am, "rich...-hL1kC/Rw3p0wFerOooGFRg@public.gmane.org"
<richard.johans...-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> Hi nephish,
>
> Let me just share some experiences.
>
> * It is fully possible to run your different rails apps behind an
> apache server. I would recommend you to set up one mongrel server (or a
> cluster of mongrel servers, read about it on the webpage) per
> application, and point your different Vhosts to those server ports.
> Apache dont have native rails support as a module, so the best way to
> go is mongrel in my opinion. There are other options like Fastcgi to
> run your app, but I myself only had bad experiences with it.
>
> * There should definatly be some ruby script for your graph needs. Im
> not an expert in the area, but i use FusionCharts on a site to generate
> nice looking flash graphs. If you dont want to involve flash, there
> should be some ruby script to generate graphics. Look at RMagick, but i
> reckon thats at a too low level for what your looking for.
>
> * I really, really recommend applying the Rails conventions on your
> database structure. It will for sure spare you lots of time later on
> with all the magic thats involved. I cant imagine my daily work today
> if it wasnt for the rails convention-related help i get :)
>
> Best of luck,
>
> Richard Johansson
>
> nephish wrote:
> > Lo there,
>
> > I am wanting to redo our company website in rails ( it now uses php ).
> > I have the Agile book on the way here from Amazon. I am really new at
> > this, and had a couple of questions.
>
> > First off, we run three websites off of our apache server at work (
> > debian linux ). I know that ror can use apache instead of webbrick as
a
> > server. Is it possible to run more than one rails app from one server
> > using virtual hosting (name based).
>
> > Next. We do a lot of intense graphing apps that are written in php
> > using a class called JpGraph. How well do rails and php play together
?
> > or would it be worth it to use a ruby charting and graphing app ?
>
> > lastly, I know that there are certain conventions that rails looks for
> > in how it uses a database. Our tables follow none of these. Would i
> > have to restructure my SQL tables to make use of rails? I mean, i know
> > that i can follow our own conventions ( which stink ) but will that
> > prove a configuration nightmare ? Would it be best to just restructure
> > everything according to rails conventions ?
>
> > I guess thats it. The reason i want to use rails is because I have
just
> > started getting into ruby, and rails looks like a really cool way to
> > handle our web front end. Many many of our scripts that we use to run
> > the site now are php and need to be revamped anyway. I started
building
> > the site about a year ago whilst learning php.
>
> > Anyway, please, any tips would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> > thanks.
> > sk

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Chris Mear wrote:
> nephish wrote:
> > Next. We do a lot of intense graphing apps that are written in php
> > using a class called JpGraph. How well do rails and php play together
?
> > or would it be worth it to use a ruby charting and graphing app ?
>
> Gruff is a popular graphing library for Ruby. It relies on ImageMagick
> and RMagick at the backend.
>
> http://nubyonrails.com/pages/gruff
Charting is a huge part of our application.  After researching lots of
charting packages, including Gruff, I found ChartDirector to the best
by far.  At the time there were no Ruby bindings, so I wrote our
charting code with php + ChartDirector and had Rails request graphs
from our chart server via XML-RPC.  If you are absolutely tied to
JpGraph, you could use that option.

However, as of last week, there are now Ruby bindings for
ChartDirector.  I''m very excited.  I would love to see more
Rails''ers
use ChartDirector so we could find any bugs in the Ruby bindings.

Note that I am in no way affiliated with ChartDirector or Advanced
Software Engineering, I''ve just been using it for over a year and I
really like it.

http://www.advsofteng.com/

Of course, your other good option is doing the charts in Flash.

-Jeff


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i don''t have a lot of flash experience, but i do like what i see on
your link.
the flash charting app that Richard showed me, the Fusion Charts looked
really cool.
i almost want to re-write all of that stuff anyway.

thanks for your help.

shawn

On Oct 5, 11:07 am, "Jeff"
<cole.j...-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> Chris Mear wrote:
> > nephish wrote:
> > > Next. We do a lot of intense graphing apps that are written in
php
> > > using a class called JpGraph. How well do rails and php play
together ?
> > > or would it be worth it to use a ruby charting and graphing app ?
>
> > Gruff is a popular graphing library for Ruby. It relies on ImageMagick
> > and RMagick at the backend.
>
> >http://nubyonrails.com/pages/gruffCharting is a huge part of our
application.  After researching lots of
> charting packages, including Gruff, I found ChartDirector to the best
> by far.  At the time there were no Ruby bindings, so I wrote our
> charting code with php + ChartDirector and had Rails request graphs
> from our chart server via XML-RPC.  If you are absolutely tied to
> JpGraph, you could use that option.
>
> However, as of last week, there are now Ruby bindings for
> ChartDirector.  I''m very excited.  I would love to see more
Rails''ers
> use ChartDirector so we could find any bugs in the Ruby bindings.
>
> Note that I am in no way affiliated with ChartDirector or Advanced
> Software Engineering, I''ve just been using it for over a year and
I
> really like it.
>
> http://www.advsofteng.com/
>
> Of course, your other good option is doing the charts in Flash.
> 
> -Jeff

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