Thanks. I have a little better understanding now.

On Jan 27, 1:20 am, Jim Clark <diegosl... / gmail.com> wrote:
> Rails is a framework for interacting with databases and web servers that
> is programmed in Ruby. When starting a project with Rails, there is a
> lot of functionality built-in so that you don't need to program it from
> scratch.
>
> For instance, many database driven web sites modify records using simple
> Create, Read, Update and Delete (CRUD) operations. If you were starting
> from scratch with Ruby, you would probably use the DBI interface (among
> many alternatives) to connect to a database, prepare a statement handle
> where the SQL is sent to the database, execute the statement handle and
> then fetch the results. None of this is overly difficult but it can be
> tedious. Add in the need for a web site to handle record navigation
> (first record, previous record, next record, last record), validate form
> values and before you know it, a simple database interface can take a
> fair amount of time to get all the details ironed out and working correctly.
>
> Rails simplifies this by providing a scaffold where all this
> functionality is built in and ready to use. If you follow the normal
> convention of how a database accesses are done, Rails makes it simple to
> connect to the database, validate form fields for appropriate values,
> and modify the records accordingly. A programmer can create an
> application with Rails in an hour or two that would take a better part
> of a day (or more) without it. So its not that Rails allows you to do
> things you can't do in Ruby, it makes it far easier and faster to do so.
>
> For web site development and testing, all you would need is a web
> browser to test the output much like in FrontPage. There are times
> though that seeing the final output is not enough to debug what is going
> on and for those instances your would use the Interactive Ruby (IRB)
> tool to step through and test code further. Rails also makes it easier
> to write unit tests to verify that code is working properly.
>
> It sounds like you should sit down with a good book and read a bit to
> get a better understanding of Rails (apologies to all for my
> oversimplified description of Rails and IRB). My recommendation is
> "Agile Web Development with Rails", second edition and if you work
> through the examples in the book you'll be hooked on Rails in no time.
>
> HTH,
> Jim
>
>
>
> Rae wrote:
> > Well I really don't understand what the difference is between Ruby and
> > Rails? Could someone explain that to me please? Is there a program that
> > you need to see your test programs? For example, in Front page, I can
> > preview what my webpage will look like. Is there a program that you can
> > use with Ruby (or is it Rails?) to see what your coded page will look
> > like?- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -