Practicing Rails

Introduction
[This book] is meant to be practical. It is meant for use.
Mindfulness in Plain English

Im addicted to learning.
Right next to me, I see books on code generation, agile processes, statistics, writing,
JavaScript, Erlang, and a lot more. And that doesnt even count the Kindle.
I want to read them all. But if Im not careful, reading them will be a total waste of
time. Ill read one, Ill love it, Ill set it down, and a week later Ill have forgotten
everything in it.
Books are my favorite way to learn something new. But even after buying and reading
tons of books, youll still get lost when you try things on your own. And at that point,
have you learned? Or are you just transcribing?
1. http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe1-4.html

It seems so easy when its words on a page. But when you try to transform your ideas
into code, out comes the stress, the frustration, and the worry. You dont have the
time to go over it all again, so did you spend that time learning for nothing?
This happens all the time. Its exactly how I felt learning Rails. Its how I felt when
I first started writing, and playing Go, and using Emacs. But it doesnt have to stop
you.
It is possible to learn Rails without being totally overwhelmed, and without having
the things you learn abandon you as soon as you try to grab ahold of them.
Thats what this book is about. Its a second book of Rails. A companion. Itll show
you how to learn the most in the least amount of time, using the resources you already have. And in the process, Ill guide you through some of the toughest lessons
Ive learned during my programming and Rails career.

I have three rules for reading this book:

1. Its not you, its me.
If theres anything you dont understand here, ask me about it. This stuff gets
complicated, so its not your fault for misunderstanding it. Its my fault for
not explaining it well enough! Send me an email ([email protected]),
and Ill do my best to clear it up.
2. Embrace struggle, failure, and reward.
Learning to become a great Rails developer is hard work. And, being hard
work, the only way to learn is to struggle. Ive heard programming described
3

Practicing Rails

as Running into a brick wall, constantly. So dont worry if you feel that way
we all do.
If it came easily, it wouldnt feel so great when you get it. Seriously, finally
fixing a problem youve been fighting for the last hour is the best feeling in
the world. So struggling should tell you that youre on the brink of learning
something really valuable.
3. Find the fun.
Every developer I know has those areas of programming that they love to do
more than anything else.
For some people, its data modeling. Have them draw some boxes and lines
on a whiteboard, and they can talk for hours. For others, its seeing their stuff
running on other peoples phones and computers. The magic of deployment.
For me, its refactoring. Taking a chunk of terrible code and turning it into
something clean and beautiful.
Youll have your own preferences. So as you follow this book, search for the
things that really resonate with you, the things you get lost in, the things you
just want to do for hours.
Keep those in mind. Because when you get frustrated, youll have something
you like to do to come back to. Itll remind you why youre doing this, and
help you enjoy some of the fun before you dive back into the frustrating.

Learning isnt just about reading. Its also about action. And thats why you cant
learn Rails without practicing Rails.
4

Chapter 1

Tiny Apps: The best way to study new

Rails ideas
Lose your first 50 games as quickly as possible.
2

Go Proverb

Build your first 50 Rails Apps as quickly as possible.

Go Proverb (paraphrased)
Books on software development are huge. If I really try, I can get through one in
a week. That is, if Im commuting by bus, and all the expressways are closed, and
theres some kind of protest going on Otherwise, it takes even longer.

2. http://senseis.xmp.net/?LoseYourFirst50GamesAsQuicklyAsPossible

Practicing Rails

But I dont read programming books on the bus. Because when I do, the information
drains out of my mind before I get home. Instead, I read them in front of my computer, so I can try things out. Sure, it takes longer to get through each one. But whats
the point of reading non-fiction if youre just going to forget it when it matters?
The best way to learn new Rails ideas and techniques is to use them. Right away.
Practice them, internalize them, and make those techniques yours.
Rails gives you two ways to try new ideas right away: generators and scaffolds. With
two lines, you have an entire Rails app ready to use:
rails new test_app
bin/rails generate scaffold some_model name:string

You can try anything: routing, HTML, associations, filters, callbacks, validations, and
everything else.
This isnt an app youll actually ship. Its only there to help you learn. When you generate a tiny app like this, you go from book to playground in seconds. Thats powerful.

I generate apps for all kinds of things :

ls ~/Source/testapps | wc -l
52
3. This command finds all the directories I have inside ~/Source/testapps, and counts them. But if youre
4
ever confused about a terminal command like this, try typing it into Explain Shell .
4. http://explainshell.com/

That is, Ive generated fifty-two Rails apps, just for trying out ideas I have. I can explore new Rails features, use tricks I learn from blog posts, do research for my articles
and this book, and play with anything else I can think of.
(And those are from after I sort-of-accidentally wiped my hard drive three months
ago).
All of those are just Rails 4.1 or 4.2 apps, using Rails defaults, with one or two generated models. Nothing complicated, just a playground for learning and breaking
things.

Whats the difference between rails and bin/rails?

Sometimes, youll use rails or bundle exec rails, and other times youll use bin/
rails. Why is that?
When youre already inside a Rails app, you should use bin/rails and bin/rake.
These commands are created when Rails generates your app, and the commands
will use the right version of Rails for that app. In Rails 4.1 and higher, bin/rails
will probably be faster than running bundle exec rails.
But when you dont have a Rails app, those files in bin/ dont exist yet, so you cant
use them.
So, when youre inside a Rails app, use bin/rails. When youre trying to create a
new Rails app, use rails. Yep, I wish this was less confusing, too!

Practicing Rails

Learning from tiny apps

When youre working with such small apps, you focus on the single thing you want to
learn. That way, you dont have to worry about juggling it inside your existing, more
complicated apps.
For example, if youre trying to learn ActiveModel::Serializers, and your controller
isnt serializing the model correctly, you can never be sure if the problems a gap in
your knowledge, a problem with Rails, or a problem with your app.
If you tried this out in a tiny test app, you could be pretty sure it was just a simple
mistake or a misunderstanding. You can catch these mistakes on a small scale before
you fight the bugs that appear when you use them into a larger app.
Soon, youll go from technique I just read about to this seems interesting to fully running Rails app using it without having to think about it.

Wrapping it up
If you really want to learn something, you have to use it. This goes for Rails, too. And
the fastest way to learn new Rails concepts is to scaffold new apps where you can try
them out.
When you explore new concepts in tiny test apps, youll be able to focus on the idea
youre trying to learn. You can try it in different situations. Youll get practice using
it. And you wont have to worry as much about integration pain or errors.

How you can use Rails to learn Rails

So, youre ready to try something new inside a tiny Rails app. But youre still missing
a few steps:
How can you build a realistic-enough Rails app to use as your playground?
How do you learn a new concept inside a real, tiny Rails app?

Coming up with quick ideas

Models called Test1 arent that helpful. I have a hard enough time understanding
new Rails concepts without also having to fight against bad class names. So, you need
realistic-looking models, resources, views, and controllers. You need a system that
you know well, but can still build quickly. And that starts with an idea.
Coming up with ideas on the fly is hard. And if you come up with new app ideas every
time you want to try something out, youre just wasting time. Instead, think of a few
different app types you can reuse.
What do I mean by an app type?
Its a concept for an app that youll use to generate new tiny apps. It might be something youve built already, or something youve been thinking of building.
Here are some examples of app types Ive used:
A blog
A link aggregator, like Reddit or Hacker News

Practicing Rails

A forum, like Discourse

A Q&A site, like Stack Overflow
These might seem big, but remember: youre not building a full-featured app, youre
building a tiny app. Youre building the bare minimum you need to learn something
new about Rails. The app type is just meant to make naming your models and controllers easier, and to help you picture the relationships between your objects.
When I want to build a tiny app, I use the idea of a bug tracker. So when I generate a
Rails app to try out something new, Ill start by generating a Bug model. If Im learning something that needs associations, Ill also generate a User or Project model.
But the details dont matter too much, so feel free to choose one of the examples I
mentioned.

Why choose an app type now?

When you build a lot of tiny apps, youll want to keep going back to the same object
model, the same user interface (UI), the same resources. Things you understand, that
you can rely on.
Youre already working hard on learning a new Rails feature. So you dont need to
spend time coming up with a whole new app, new metaphors, and a new data model
every single time.
Plus, as you keep coming back to the same generic app, youll get faster at generating
the scaffolds, models, views, and controllers youll need. So youll spend less time
doing busywork and more time learning.

10

How to build a tiny app

Most of my sample apps start like this:
rails new test_polymorphic_association
cd test_polymorphic_association
bin/rails generate scaffold bug title:string description:text
bin/rake db:migrate

This gives you a simple app that you can try out in your browser. You can hack on it,
break it, and play with it. You spent almost zero time building it, so you dont have
to worry about screwing it up. You can do anything you want to it!

But scaffolds?
You might hear that Rails developers dont use scaffolds in the real world. I totally
disagree with that. I use scaffolds all the time, even though I could write the code
from scratch. Why?
In real apps, I cant ship great features until I play with them first. With scaffolds,
you can do that without taking much time. If you change your mind about how your
features designed, you can tear it out. No big deal.
And sure, you might replace the scaffold before you ship. But I prefer to spend as little time as possible on the code until Im happy with how a feature works.
I care about getting the most knowledge in the least amount of time, and scaffolds
and other Rails code generators are a great way to do just that.

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Practicing Rails

Exploring inside a working Rails app

Next, take the idea youre learning and translate it into a working Rails app. This
takes practice, but itll usually go like this:
Take the thing youre learning and put it into the right place in your app.
If it doesnt need to be accessed through the UI, try it out in the Rails console.
If you touched the controllers or views, boot your Rails server and play with
your code through the browser.
Change it to be a little more complicated, and get it working again.

Where does the code go?

How do you go from feature in a book to website I built that uses that feature?
First, generate your scaffolds. If your go-to app type is a bug tracker, generate a scaffold for the Bug model. For larger features, generate a few other scaffolds.
Now you have some places to put validations, controller code, and view code. Do your
best to imitate the code that youre reading. Just copy it and put model code into the
model, view code into the view, and so on. If you dont know where it goes, you can
try it in the Rails console, which Ill talk about in the next section.
When youve generated the scaffold and added code, map the root route to the index
action of the new controller:
config/routes.rb
root 'bugs#index'

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After that, start up a server:

bin/rails server

visit http://localhost:3000 in your browser, and try your scaffold out!

Playing with these apps in your browser can be slow, though. You have to deal with
controller and view code that you might not need for the thing youre trying to learn.
There could also be new Rails concepts that are hard to play with through the browser. Youd rather just write the code, and see it run.
There are a few good ways to do just that.

Trying out new ideas, faster

You dont have to bring up a whole Rails server if you want to try something out. Instead, you can often take a lighter-weight approach. You can use the Rails console.
5

For example, I wrote an article about Rails validation contexts . I was curious
whether calling valid? twice with different contexts would add to the errors, or if
it would overwrite them. When I investigated it, I never had to start a Rails server. I
used the console instead.
You start a rails console by running bin/rails console inside your apps main directory. Once youre in, you can call methods, define classes, do pretty much everything
youd do in code, and itll just run:

5. http://www.justinweiss.com/blog/2014/09/15/a-lightweight-way-to-handle-different-validation-situations/

13

Practicing Rails
bin/rails console
Loading development environment (Rails 4.1.5)
irb(main):001:0> a = Article
Article.new
=> #<Article id: nil, title: nil, body: nil, author_id: nil,
created_at: nil, updated_at: nil>
irb(main):002:0> a.valid?(:publish)
=> false
irb(main):003:0> a.errors.messages
=> {:author_id=>["can't be blank"], :body=>["can't be blank"]}
irb(main):004:0> a.valid?
=> false
irb(main):005:0> a.errors.messages
=> {:author_id=>["can't be blank"]}
irb(main):006:0> exit

Yep, looks like the errors are overwritten.

It was really easy to try validation contexts out this way. Imagine how much more
work itd be to test this from the views!
(Note that here, I used Article instead of Bug, because I couldnt come up with a
good example of validation contexts within a bug tracker. This is why it can be handy
to have a few different app types in mind).

Some tips for investigating ideas through the Rails console

Rails is designed for the web, so it might seem like theres a lot that you cant test
through the console. But there are some ways you can get further than you might expect.

14

First, you can use a lot of Rails features through the app object. app is a special object
6
that has some useful methods for experimenting with your Rails app .
For example, you can try out your routes:
irb(main):001:0> bug = Bug
Bug.create(:name => "Some bug name")
(0.3ms) begin transaction
SQL (2.9ms) INSERT INTO "bugs" ("created_at", "title",
"updated_at") VALUES (?, ?, ?) [["created_at", "2014-11-12
07:51:02.211664"], ["title", "Some bug name"], ["updated_at",
"2014-11-12 07:51:02.211664"]]
(1.2ms) commit transaction
=> #<Bug id: 1, title: "Some bug name", description: nil,
created_at: "2014-11-12 07:51:02", updated_at: "2014-11-12
07:51:02">
irb(main):002:0> app.bug_path bug
=> "/bugs/1"

You can make web requests, so you can run controller and view code:

6. In case youre curious, app provides all of the Rails integration test methods: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/
testing.html#helpers-available-for-integration-tests

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Practicing Rails
irb(main):003:0> app.get "/bugs/1"
Started GET "/bugs/1" for 127.0.0.1 at 2014-07-09 06:16:21 -0700
ActiveRecord::SchemaMigration Load (0.6ms) SELECT
"schema_migrations".* FROM "schema_migrations"
Processing by BugsController#show as HTML
Parameters: {"id"=>"1"}
Bug Load (0.3ms) SELECT "bugs".* FROM "bugs" WHERE "bugs"."id"
= ? LIMIT 1 [["id", 1]]
Rendered bugs/show.html.erb within layouts/application (17.2ms)
Completed 200 OK in 228ms (Views: 180.7ms | ActiveRecord: 0.3ms)
=> 200
irb(main):003:0> puts app.response.body.first(200
200)
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Bugsmash</title>
<link data-turbolinks-track="true" href="/assets/bugs.css?body=1"
media="all" rel="stylesheet" />
<link data-turbolinks-track="true" href="/as
=> nil

The console also gives you helper. The helper object provides all of your apps view
and helper methods in the Rails console:
irb(main):005:0> helper.content_tag :h1, "Hey there"
=> "<h1>Hey there</h1>"
helper works with Rails view methods like content_tag and form_for, and any meth-

ods you define in app/helpers.

Finally, theres _. The result of the last line you ran in the console is automatically
saved in a variable named _. You can use it in the next line:
16

irb(main):001:0> Article
Article.new
=> #<Article id: nil, title: nil, body: nil, author_id: nil,
created_at: nil, updated_at: nil>
irb(main):002:0> _.valid?
=> false

Here, I didnt need to assign Article.new to a variable, because I could just use _ to
reference it.
The Rails console is the fastest way you can try the things youre learning. Its the
tool I reach for first when I need to try out something new.

Automating your experiments with tests

The Rails console is helpful, but you have to type the same things each time you start
it. Youll need to find or build your object, perform some actions, and only then can
you do what you came into the console to try out.
But Rails already has a way of running code quickly and repeatedly: test files. Besides
using your test files to test code, you can also use them to experiment with code. For
example, going back to the Article example from earlier:

17

Practicing Rails
test/models/article_test.rb
require 'test_helper'
class ArticleTest < ActiveSupport::TestCase
test "seeing if errors are overridden when valid? is called twice
with different contexts" do
article = Article
Article.new
article.valid?(:publish)
puts
puts "--After calling valid?(:publish)"
puts article.errors.full_messages
article.valid?
puts "--After calling valid? again"
puts article.errors.full_messages
end
end

You can run it with bin/rake:

bin/rake
Run options: --seed 895
# Running:
--After calling valid?(:publish)
Author can't be blank
Body can't be blank
--After calling valid? again
Author can't be blank
.F.....F
Finished in 0.458934s, 17.4317 runs/s, 21.7896 assertions/s.

This might look weird, because there arent any assertions. And the output isnt that
great to read. But remember, this is just about experimentation. I no longer have to

18

worry about setting up my objects, because all the setup code is in my test file, which
I can run whenever I want.

Focused tests
Ruby has a quick way to run a single test case (or set of test cases). When you run a
single test, you get clearer, faster responses. Using the last example, from your Rails
root, you could run just the test case we wrote:
ruby -Itest test/models/article_test.rb -n "test_seeing_if_errors_
are_overridden_when_valid_is_called_twice_with_different_
contexts"

Lets take a closer look at that command. The -Itest part tells Ruby to look in your
Rails apps test directory when you use require. You need this, because your test
files require test/test_helper.rb, which boots Rails so it can run your test.
test/models/article_test.rb is the name of the test file to run. In Ruby, you can run

a test file as if its just a Ruby script, and itll automatically discover any test cases in
them and run them.
Finally, the -n "test_seeing_if_errors_are_overridden_when_valid?_is_called_
twice_with_different_contexts" tells Ruby which specific test to run.
The name of this method is a little bit different than what you defined earlier. When
you use the test "some friendly name" syntax, Rails does two things to build the
name that you use with -n:
1. Prefix the name with test_

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Practicing Rails

2. Replace all spaces with _

So, if you said test "my friendly name", youd use -n "test_my_friendly_name" to
run it. A little annoying, but thats how it is.
The second thing youll notice is that the test name is really long. If you dont feel
like typing that much, you can use a different -n:
ruby -Itest test/models/article_test.rb -n "/is_called_twice/"

Instead of running only one test, this syntax will run all of the tests that have
is_called_twice somewhere in the name. This is a lot shorter, but you might run a
few tests instead of just one. In your sample apps, where youre just using tests to try
things out, it probably wont matter.

Tests vs. the console

So, the console is great for messing with objects, but it can be hard to get those objects set up. Tests are great for getting objects set up, but hard for messing with them.
Can you get both?
7

If you use tests along with a gem called pry , you can use your tests to set up the objects, then open a console with pry. Once youre in the console, you can start experimenting with your code.
If you add pry to your Gemfile:

7. http://pryrepl.org

20

Gemfile
gem 'pry', group: [:development, :test]

and install it:

bundle install

you can use binding.pry in your test, wherever you want to enter a console:
test/models/article_test.rb
test "seeing if errors are overridden when valid? is called twice
with different contexts" do
article = Article
Article.new
article.valid?(:publish)
binding.pry
end

Then, when you run bin/rake, youll see:

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Practicing Rails
bin/rake
Run options: --seed 19674
# Running:
From: /Users/jweiss/Source/test_validation_contexts/test/models/
article_test.rb @ line 7 ArticleTest#test_seeing_if_errors_are_
overridden_when_valid?_is_called_twice_with_different_contexts:
4: test "seeing if errors are overridden when valid? is called
twice with different contexts" do
5:
article = Article.new
6:
article.valid?(:publish)
=> 7:
binding.pry
8: end
[1] pry(#<ArticleTest>)> article.errors.messages
=> {:author_id=>["can't be blank"], :body=>["can't be blank"]}

Its a console!
You can do most things here that you can do with the Rails console (but you wont
have the app and helper objects). It even has syntax highlighting and some really nice
8
other features . And when you combine it with tests, you can try out new ideas really
quickly.

Wrapping it up
Tiny Rails apps are a great way to try new ideas out in a realistic way. When you use
scaffolds and Rails generators, you can build these apps quickly.
So, when youre introduced to a new idea, generate an app with a scaffold or two. Add
the code youre seeing to the right place in your app.
8. http://pryrepl.org

22

If you can access the code you added without going through the UI, use a Rails console to explore that code. Otherwise, start up your Rails server and try it out through
the UI.
If you start to get annoyed with the amount of setup you have to do, put some of that
setup code into a test. If you combine test cases with pry, you can have your test case
do all of the repeatable setup, and drop you off at the right place to experiment.

Exercise
Take the most recent Rails idea you heard about. (If youre having trouble thinking
9
of one, try something like Active Record Enums ). Start a tiny Rails app using the
process in this section, and get it built and working. Then, experiment with it. How
can you break it? Look up the documentation. Are there any other features you could
try?

Owning the things you learn

Copying ideas out of a book and into your tiny Rails apps will help you learn them
faster. But in order to master them, you have to tweak the code you copy, until you
discover all of their secrets and make them your own.

9. http://edgeguides.rubyonrails.org/4_1_release_notes.html#active-record-enums

23

Practicing Rails

Testing the boundaries

Has this ever happened to you?
You read something in a Rails book, and start thinking about it. You get a sentence
or two in, and questions start filling your head:
Why does it work that way?
How could this possibly work?
What if I tried using it with this other idea I just learned about?
All of a sudden, youre ten pages past the last place you remember being, and you
have to go back and re-read everything. Or, you assume that you learned the concept
well enough, and get lost in the next chapter.
This is what happens to me when I read technical books. I just cant let those questions go!
Most Rails books and videos are good at showing you whats possible. But they cant
explain everything. Those gaps will raise questions, and youll naturally want to have
those questions answered.
So, when I say play with and modify the things you learn, I mean Answer the questions you have about the things you learn, using code.
You can do this by searching for the documentation, and trying different configuration, different parameters, and methods that you didnt know about before. By using
things you just learned along with ideas you already know well, so you can see how
they interact. And by trying to break things, which Ill talk about next.
24

Youll remember what you read about, because the searches, the error messages
when things break, and the feeling of success when you discover something new, will
all stick with you.
Its so much easier, and a lot more fun, than just reading a chapter in a book. Because
that concept, those ideas, are now yours.

How can you break it?

One of my favorite ways to learn something new is to break it.
For example, say Im exploring Rails 4.2s config_for method. That looks like this:
Rails
Rails.application.config_for(:redis)

That line will load config/redis.yml, If Im in development mode, itll look for configuration under the development: key inside that file, and so on. Then, itll return
the values under that key as a hash.
Theres a lot you could play with here to answer some interesting questions. What if
you passed a string instead of a symbol? What if you passed a path, instead of just
a filename? Could you find a way to load a .yml in lib/ instead? Could you pass an
absolute path, like /usr/local/etc/redis.yml? What if your .yml file didnt have the
Rails environments defined in it? What if it used yaml includes, like &default? Can
you use ERB inside your config file?
Next, try some of these out, and see what happens.
When you use your curiosity to break things:
25

Practicing Rails

You get to see different kinds of errors when youre expecting them. This is so
helpful: Its so much less intimidating to see an error message when you already know youre going to get an error message, and you start to see certain
messages really often. Youll develop intuition about what they mean. Youll
10
eventually start psychic debugging , where you can tell someone where the
problem is in their code without even looking at it. (This is a really fun way to
amaze and annoy your friends and coworkers).
Youll start thinking of ways to break features without knowing how theyre
implemented. Thats your first step to getting great at writing test cases. And
11
itll really help you once you start practicing Test-Driven Development .
When you break things on purpose, you get more comfortable when things
break. The way to deal with errors is by building curiosity, not fear. Why is
this thing breaking?, rather than How can I make this problem go away!

Wrapping it up
Once you have a good playground for trying something you just learned, use that
playground to own that concept. Explore the boundaries of that concept until you
feel like you really get it.
A lot of the exploration comes from brainstorming questions you have about the feature. Some of these questions will come to you naturally, and others youll have to
think a lot about.
10. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2005/12/02/499389.aspx
11. Abbreviated TDD, test-driven development is a mode of testing where you write tests against code that you
havent written yet. You use those tests to tell you how to design your code.

26

If youre having trouble brainstorming questions you have about the feature, use
How can I break this feature? to come up with some ideas.
Once you have some good questions, answer them on your own inside your tiny Rails
app. You wont be able to answer them all, but youll teach yourself a lot by trying.

What do you do when youre done with a tiny app?

When youre through experimenting with a tiny Rails app, you might be tempted to
delete it. But I tend not to.
Storage is cheap, and Rails apps are pretty small. If you keep your playground apps
alive after youre done with them, they can come in handy later:
When the thing you learned comes up in a real app, your tiny app provides a
great example of that idea being used.
If you have more questions about that feature of Rails later on, you can avoid
some work. Your playground is already there.
Its rewarding to revisit your early work and see how much youve learned
since then.
We dont always feel like were progressing as quickly as we want to. But when
you look at your earlier code, you can really see how much youve grown. Your
older code will seem primitive, and itll take a lot of willpower to resist rewriting it right then.
So keep your old code around.
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Practicing Rails

Dont lose your apps!

But theres no point keeping these apps around if cant find them when you need
them. Im actually pretty bad at this. Its just easier to type rails new test8 than it
is to come up with a good name. But this is the process Ive been following:
Generate all of your test apps in their own folder. Ive been using ~/Source/testapps.
That way, they dont clog up whichever folder youre using to work on real stuff.
Then, come up with a two or three word description of the specific feature youre
playing with. Some examples of things Ive used are validation_contexts,
gemfile_groups, rc_files, and validation_mixins. Use that description as the Rails
apps name.
If you can only think of one word to use, like validations, it usually means the thing
you want to play with is too big. Break it apart into a few different apps, each testing
one smaller idea.
Afterward, a quick ls ~/Source/testapps will give you a quick list of all the things
youve explored. Its your own personal reference guide to Rails!

Wrapping it up
So, when youre done playing with your tiny Rails app, dont delete it. Keep it around
as a reference later.
Picking good names for your tiny apps will help you find them when you need them.
Its hard to find out which of test1..test57 is the one that taught you polymorphic

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associations. A two to three word name is best. Its short enough to scan, but long
enough that each app is focused on one small idea.

Putting it all together

If you want to learn a new idea in Rails, you have to use it right away. If you follow the
steps in this chapter, youll build the kind of in-depth Rails knowledge that youve
been hoping for:
1. When something you read looks interesting, or you have questions about it,
generate a tiny Rails app using rails new. Use a subfolder for all of your test
apps, and give them a good two or three word name focused on the idea
youre exploring.
2. Build a simple example of the thing youre trying to learn inside your tiny
app.
3. If you think it should be tested through your Rails apps UI, start up the server
with bin/rails server, visit http://localhost:3000 and try it out.
4. If its something smaller, that you can play with without a browser, use bin/
rails console to start up a console, where you can play with what youve
built.
5. If setting it up in the console gets annoying, write a fake test for it, and run it
with bin/rake or run the single test case.
12

6. If you want repeatable setup and a console, use pry inside your tests.

12. http://pryrepl.org

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Practicing Rails

7. Brainstorm some questions you have about the idea youre exploring.
8. Discover the answers to those questions within your tiny Rails app by modifying the code you just wrote.

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Chapter 2

How to build your own Rails app

After you go through a few Rails tutorials, youll know a lot about Rails. You might
even have enough knowledge to rebuild the apps from the tutorial without looking at
it.
But you didnt get into Rails to rebuild a tutorials example blog. You want to build
your own stuff! So why is it that when you try to build your own Rails app, its always
a lot harder than it should be?

Youll know it first by the weird, tingling feeling in your shoulders or legs. Youll get
stressed out by the empty command line and skeleton Rails app on your screen, and
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have absolutely no idea where to start. Its just easier to hop onto Hacker News and
read a few articles instead. Inspiration has to come sometime, right?
13. http://news.ycombinator.com

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Practicing Rails

This feeling is totally normal. Whenever Im about to start a new Rails app, I still feel
like I want to give up computers forever and run into the woods or something. But I
have a process to share with you that will help you get past this, so you can turn your
ideas into real, working apps.

Do you want to build a new Rails app from the ideas you have in your head?
Learn step-by-step ways to test your code easily and efficiently?
Know what to do when your apps blow up, and you have no idea how to fix
them?
Know which parts of Rails to learn now, and what you can put off until later?
Get just the important information out of the noisy Rails community?
And keep your motivation fired up, so you can turn mastering Rails into a
habit youll actually keep?
This is the end of the sample. But youll learn all these things (and more) in
the full book of Practicing Rails.
14

Start Practicing Rails here.

14. https://www.justinweiss.com/practicing-rails

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