The documentation for setting up a web server for RoR (Ruby on Rails) on Windows is really lacking. Figuring out what server software you’re supposed to use is probably the hardest part. Should you use Apache or IIS as the web server? How are you going to connect it to Ruby? CGI, FastCGI, fcgid, Mongrel, mod_ruby, passenger (aka mod_rails / mod_rack) or WEBrick (not recommended for production use)?
If you pick a combination that doesn’t work properly on Windows, you can spend hours (as I did with mod_fcgid) trying to figure it out.
The solution that worked for me was setting up Mongrel (which is a Ruby web server) as a service, and using Apache to proxy Ruby requests to Mongrel.
Here’s a step by step tutorial:
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I spent a really long time (8+ hours) setting up an open source project tracker called InDefero. I was also trying to setup Git at the same time, but that’s something for another post.
InDefero has no install wizard (one is in the works though), so all the configuration is manual. Installing the DB tables requires you to run a PHP CLI script. Everything was going smoothly until I tried to install the tables. The script exited with no output every time I ran it.
I tried to debug the script with echo statements, and traced to issue to a require statement that was causing execution to stop. After tinkering with several of the scripts, including the script in the require statement (the config file), and still having the install script fail, the thought occurred to me, why am I not getting any debug info from PHP?
Since the php.ini I was using was setup for production, display_errors was off. After turning it on with a CLI switch, I got a debug message. My config file was messed up. After going to the indicated line, I realized what happened.
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If any of you have used OS web applications, you know that setup and configuration can sometimes trigger extended hair removal sessions (read pull hair out).
WordPress is the exact opposite. Installation took, as their readme said, five minutes. I could’ve stopped there, and started blogging right away.
After installing a theme, a gallery plugin, and changing some configuration items, the blog is ready to go. I’ve probably spent an hour tweaking the blog since I installed it.That’s nothing compared to what I’ve had to do with other web apps in the past.
The interface for WP’s admin backend is pretty impressive, and everything seems to “just work”.
That’s all for now.