Rails express
After a couple of weeks of studying Rails I started a small application just to see how we go along. It is the third version of my family’s photo album (previously powered by Delphi Websnap, currently by asp.net and hopingly powered by Rails soon). I use it to grasp a first hands-on impression on new web framework.
… Perhaps the photo albums should be promoted like the “web developers target of the year” along with “todo lists” 
It seems that Rails have made some waves and everybody wants to write his own photo album or todo lists. Why not me too? …
So it goes rather well. I stumbled on some not Rails related small difficulties, like:
- using RMagick library for images thumbnails
- using the Calendar Helper
- some Ruby issues (very usefull docs here)
- configuring Apache on Windows (only 1 of 2 of my configs works)
They were all due of my mostly windows developer background. I still get confused when using 7-8 windows/apps (of which 2-3 are command line terminals) while in development. I guess I am used to having an IDE - like Borland’s ones - always open and handy.
The most helpfull I find the Agile Rails book, the Ruby on Rails website, the comp.lang.ruby.rails list and a lot of Rails-related blogs.
What is funny about Rails is that, unlike other web frameworks, the newcomers (like me) are attracted by some concrete real-world applications using it. I currently use all the 37signals applications (the free levels for now), Instiki and have tried Typo.
Updates
Interview on O’Reilly’s network with David Heinemeier Hansson, the Rails creator, about the present and future of Rails.
