basic_rails_workflow.md

The workflow we will follow looks like this:

1. Planning
2. Initializing Application
3. Building the Rails Model
4. Configure our Dev Environment
5. Defining Routes
6. Writing Controllers and their Views (iterate)
7. Styling Views
8. Share!

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####Part one

Planning:

• user stories
  • role, goal, reason
  • itemize features
  • define MVP (minimally-vaible-project)
• create milestones
• model data (draw ERD)
• describe states (state diagram)
  • index, new, create, show
    • new -> CREATE (create) -> …
    • READ (index), READ (show)
  • edit, update, destroy
    • edit -> UPDATE (update) -> …
    • … -> DESTROY (destroy)
• (wireframe -- not necessary here...)

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####Part two

Initialize Application

• rails new appname --database=postgresql
• cd into appname, and then git init
• git add / git commit

Building the Rails Model

• create database (psql)
• configure database.yml
• define migration (rails generate migration)
  • column type string vs column type text et al
  • t.timestamps!
• run migration
• write model(s)
  • table is plural and snake_case; model class and file are both singular (in Camel and snake_ cases, respectively)
• git commit!

Configure our Development Environment

At this point we want to make sure things are working, so let's test our model and database!

• add what we want to our Gemfile ('pry-rails', 'better-errors', 'annotate', eg, all in group: development)
• rails console (or rails c)
• add some seed data…
  • appname/db/seeds.rb
  • rake db:seed
• git commit!

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####Part three

Define Routes

• organize resources from model
• non-resource-based routes (index)
• git commit!

Write Controllers and their Views

• add a controller and method
• add the requisite view
• git commit!
• repeat!
• often, a good order to write controller actions is:
  • Index (Displays all entries)
  • New (Displays a form to create a new entry)
  • Create (Creates a new entry and saves it to the database)
  • Show (Displays one particular entry)
• continue:
  • Edit (Displays a form to edit an existing entry)
    • <form action="/resource" method="post"><input type="hidden" name="_method" value="put" />
    • Mimics "PUT"
  • Update (Updates an entry and saves it to the database)
  • Destroy (Deletes an entry)
    • <form action="/resource" method="post"><input type="hidden" name="_method" value="delete" />
    • Mimics "DELETE"

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###Part four

Style

• master stylesheet

Share!

• upload to GH
• upload to Heroku