Distributing a Rails app

Rails
1

I’ve developed a Rails application that I’d like to make generally
available, but I’m not sure how to go about this, or even what tools
are most appropriate. Is this something that the Rails framework
provides, or is it a job for Rake? for Rubygems? for Tar2rubyscript or
Rubyscript2exe?

A pointer to a “Distributing your Rails Application” would be ideal.

– John Kodis.

2

maybe just a zip file, so it can be unpacked on any platform without
problems.

3

This is for an open source application, so I’m more interested in
making the source code available than in hiding it. Sorry for the
confusion.

One of the problems with a simple zip of the project directory is that
this would also pick up some cruft that I’d rather not include – the
server logs, backups of source files, and who knows what all else,
especially since I’m not sure how much of the code that Rails supplies
is required and how much can be left behind.

It sounds as though I should write a Make or Rake file that specifies
the files required for the application, much as would be done with the
.files entry in a Gem::Specification.

If that’s the current best practice, that’s good to know, and I
appreciate the information. I’m just surprised that it’s less
automated than I’d expect, given the level of automation that’s so
evident through the rest of the Rails development process.

– John Kodis.

4

On 21 Jan 2006, at 17:42, John Kodis wrote:

I’ve developed a Rails application that I’d like to make generally
available, but I’m not sure how to go about this, or even what tools
are most appropriate. Is this something that the Rails framework
provides, or is it a job for Rake? for Rubygems? for Tar2rubyscript or
Rubyscript2exe?

Are you just distributing an open source application, or is this a
commercial application where you don’t want customers to have access
to source code?

If it’s the former, just tar.gz or .zip it up and distribute. If it’s
the latter, you have a fair few hoops to jump through, and I’m not
convinced you can 100% protect yourself from somebody looking at your
code.

A pointer to a “Distributing your Rails Application” would be ideal.

Google suggests: http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/
distributingrubyapplications/rails.html

Looks perfect for what you want.

5

John-

A lot of the open source rails apps out there just give an svn url

as the place to get the app. Just make your app available over svn
and allow anonymous checkout.

Cheers-
-Ezra

On Jan 21, 2006, at 11:57 AM, John Kodis wrote:

It sounds as though I should write a Make or Rake file that specifies
On Sat, Jan 21, 2006 at 06:43:15PM +0000, Paul R. wrote:

commercial application where you don’t want customers to have access
distributingrubyapplications/rails.html

-Ezra Z.
WebMaster
Yakima Herald-Republic Newspaper
[email protected]
509-577-7732

6

Are you using source control? If so you could (should, probably) set it
up
so that local cruft, ie log files, isn’t stored in the repository. And
you
wouldn’t really need to version backups, since your repository is the
backup (backing up the repository itself, though, is a great idea).

Once your repository is organized and clean, you could just do a new
checkout and zip that up.

John McGrath