Notes from RailsBridge NYC, 27 Sept 2014

railsbridge-notes.md

RailsBridge Notes

Some notes from RailsBridge NYC, 27 Sept 2014.

High-level

"Convention over configuration" means... I don't need to teach Rails how to find the models, controllers, etc. or how to "route" or how to hit the database... etc. etc. etc.

on Objects

• "class" is the definition of behavior for objects in our system
• "instance" is a particular, singular copy of a class
• "method" is how we can interact with our instances
• we say, A "inherits from" B, in which case instances of A have the things that B defines (and more)

on MVC

M app/models
  - business logic here
  - database access/integration
  - e.g., Job

V app/views
  - display rules here (how do I represent a Job)

C app/controllers
  - given a request, what Models and Views should we use?

on Migrations

• Migrations create/modify the database "schema" by specifying things like...
  • name of a column for a given table
  • type of a data in the column
  • timestamps (e.g., to track when things are created and updated)
• some (of many column types:
  • integer
  • string
  • text (longer string)
  • datetime
  • ...

on Rails Helpers

• http://guides.rubyonrails.org/form_helpers.html
• http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/FormHelper.html

on Rake

A tool for defining "tasks" in Ruby, that can do many many things. In the case of Rails, we have a bunch of "tasks" related to DB creation, listing routes, etc. etc.

Other Terms

• "DRY" (don't repeat yourself)

Thank you Corey for explaining things so well.