Celebrating 1,000 downloads of Rails!
I'm really on vacation, but through my 2kb/sec GPRS connection from the mobile phone, I spotted that an amazing milestone has been reached for Rails. In the first two weeks since release, Rails has been downloaded more than 1,000 times (the RubyForge DL count + 35 due to a reset).
I'm extremely pleased with its sweeping uptake and with all the lavish praise it has gathered already. Just this morning, I received the following email from Gleb Arshinov:
I write systems code (C++, database kernels, app servers, http proxies, etc.) for a living, so web development is not usually my cup of tea... I've been helping a friend to get a custom CRM system for their office. I wrote up an MRD and was looking to offshore the development.
Then Rails came along, and now I am writing it myself :-) It's too much fun, and I think I can get it going in less time that it would take me to manage somebody else's work. That's considering that I don't know Ruby. I mean, I have a pilot running and I still don't know Ruby — I barely had to write any code :-)
So, cudos!
That certainly made my morning!
Anyway, as a thank-you-all note from the lovely island of Bornholm, I've completed the GEM for Rails. It's a tiny little thing as it's basically just dependencies. I had Chad Fowler test it out (my connection here isn't really to triggering a dependency download swirl). Here's what he got:
$ gem query -rn rails
*** REMOTE GEMS ***
rails (0.6.0)
Web-application framework with template engine,
control-flow layer, and ORM.
$ sudo gem install -r rails
Attempting remote installation of 'rails'
Install required dependency activerecord? [Yn] y
Install required dependency actionpack? [Yn] y
Successfully installed rails, version 0.6.0
$ mkdir -p ~/code/ruby/
$ rails ~/code/ruby/weblog
(in /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-0.6.0)
rm -rf /Users/chadfowler/code/ruby/weblog
mkdir /Users/chadfowler/code/ruby/weblog
mkdir /Users/chadfowler/code/ruby/weblog/app
mkdir /Users/chadfowler/code/ruby/weblog/config
mkdir /Users/chadfowler/code/ruby/weblog/config/environments
mkdir /Users/chadfowler/code/ruby/weblog/db
....etc.
$ cd ~/code/ruby/weblog
$ scp -r chad@www.chadfowler.com:/path/to/my/rails/app .
$ vi config/database.yml
$ ruby public/dispatch.servlet &
$ open http://localhost:3000/contacts/
And Chad continued: "SUCCESS! :) It's ready to release/announce. Of course, it's already in the gem repository. THANK YOU for bringing such wonderful stuff to the world of gems."