If you have completed the Ruby Jumpstart or have some programming background, then you’re ready for Rails Jumpstart. Ruby on Rails is a powerful web application framework that has become hugely popular in the past few years. It is relatively easy to develop with and can be used for simple sites like this one, or gigantic ones like YellowPages.com and RevolutionHealth.com. You’ll spend the two days working through a single concept, going from an idea to a finished product.

Level 1 Course

For the Level 1 course you need some programming background. What does that look like? If you know how control flow (like IF/ELSE statements), method calls & parameters, arrays, and hashes work, then you’re ready!

The main goals of the Level 1 course are:

• Understand the MVC architecture
• Implement database tables using migrations
• Create models that reflect relationships in the database
• Create views that allow the user to interact with the data
• Understand how parameters are used
• Understand how the request goes from the router => controller => models => controller => views

To illustrate these concepts, we’ll work through a real-world project: building a company’s e-commerce site. Here are some of the key features that will be created:

• listings of products
• a shopping cart and the ability to add products
• check-out and billing procedure
• inventory and fulfillment management
• customer and order management
• static page content and handling (“about us”, “contact”, etc)

With those basics, here are some of the optional features you might choose to add:

• email communication with both customers and fulfillment
• integration with Twitter
• simple news blog
• customer reviews and feedback
• file attachment handling (product manuals, etc)
• basic statistics & analytics

In the end, you’ll have real experience designing and developing a Rails application.

Upcoming Sessions

• Rails Jumpstart – Level 2: 5/15 – 5/16

• Rails 3 Jumpstart

• Rails Jumpstart – Level 1 – 9/11 & 9/12