A Ruby function automatically returns the value of the last expression in that function. It takes a little time to get used to this, if you are from PHP/Java background, like me. You’ll have to return values explicitly in those languages. Take this simple example.

def get_full_name(first_name, last_name)
  first_name + " " + last_name
end

It is equivalent to the following, but more elegant.

def get_full_name(first_name, last_name)
  full_name = first_name + " " + last_name
  return full_name
end

First, tools of the trade

I used to think that installing software on windows was easy, until I started using Ubuntu.  Trust me, it could never be easier.  Just run these commands, and you are done.

sudo apt-get install apache2
sudo apt-get install mysql-server
sudo apt-get install ruby-full build-essential
sudo gem install rails

Thats all we need to start working with rails.  You can verify if mysql is installed by logging into mysql.  The default password is root.  Try

mysql -uroot -proot

you should be able to log into mysql.   You can check the version of mysql, using mysql ––version  (remember, two dashes)

For ruby, run

ruby -v

The latest version as of this writing is 1.8.7.  The output should be similar to this

ruby 1.8.7 (2008-08-11 patchlevel 72) [i486-linux]

For rails, run

rails -v

The latest version of rails as of this writing is 2.3.2. The output should be similar to this

Rails 2.3.2

Wondering why use gem to install rails instead of apt-get?  gem is what we’ll be using to install all the ruby gems, so why not use it to install rails itself?