My Total Novice Experience: Ruby on Rails with Locomotive

5 October 2007 - Permanent link - Categories: prototyping

I'm going to spare you the discussion on what Ruby on Rails is and why you'd want to use it. Lots of other people have covered that. A quick word about my background:


  • I am a very good HTML, Javascript, and CSS "coder".

  • I am a moderately proficient PHP programmer, which I use to create prototypes for usability tests and whatnot.

  • I am nigh-on retarded when it comes to hooking a webapp to a MySQL database. Ergo, I usually don't get beyond the prototype stage for a lot of cool webapp ideas I've had.

  • I can muddle along in a handful of other languages and frameworks, like Perl, Java, Clearsilver, Struts, and XSLT.

  • I have zero exposure to Ruby, Python, Gems, etc.

  • I'm good at programming -- thinking in abstractions, being efficient, breaking down a goal into minute logical steps, etc.

My goal: I'm helping a friend create a usability testing infrastructure for his startup. I want to create a website to recruit participants for various studies, let people sign up to be a participant, and do some lightweight CRM of when they were contacted, outcomes, and whether they have already participated in a test.

Requirements:

Participant:

Firstname Surname Phone Country Timezone Email(unique) DateOfSubmission Age Gender Occupation Industry Education ContactForFutureTests? NativeLanguage Status[ New | AssignedToTest | Archived | CompletedTest ] NOTES

Note: (Each participant can have several notes)
Author Timestamp ParticipantID NoteText

Test: (Each test has several participants)
TestID Status[ Active | Complete | Pending ] Date Description ConsentFormURL Compensation PARTICIPANTS

TestParticipant:
CompensationGiven ConsentFormSigned? ConsentFormID

ConsentForm
UniqueID HTML TestID

Note that this is NOT tied to the actual test data in any way -- that's not the point. This app is just to keep track of who we talked to and when. It's a very lightweight CRM.

I had a no-problem installation of Locomotive, the Mac OS X bundled installation of Ruby on Rails. I got my little app up and running on my Mac.

But now, what the frack do I do?

I need to tell it my database schema: the start page says "Create your databases and edit config/database.yml"

I open database.yml. It looks like it's already set up a database:

development:

  adapter: mysql

  database: UsabilityParticipants_development

  username: root

  password:

  host: localhost

Is this true? Do I have a MySQL database running? Or do I need to go create one now, named Usability_Participants? (I have MySQL installed already but it's not running now.)

On to the internet: I go to http://developer.apple.com/tools/rubyonrails.html. Blah blah blah install, blah blah blah create an application. Locomotive did that for me. Ah-ha: Jump-Starting the Application sounds like where I'm at.

And here's the money shot: "Now we need to actually create the expenses_development database. Feel free to use whatever tool you're comfortable with. Here's how to create the database using the mysqladmin command-line tool:"

Thank you, Apple tech writers! I have the visual MySQL application installed in my Mac preferences panes, so I start up my server. I open up a terminal window. I run the suggested command and this happens:

ellen-beldners-computer:~ ellen$ $ mysqladmin -u root -p create UsabilityParticipants_development
-bash: $: command not found

Okay, so maybe I need to reinstall MySQL...? Google for [install mysql mac os x]; Apple recommends this installation package. It took about 400 clicks to get to the actual download link for Mac OS 10.4 x86....

Installed and running. let's try that command again:

 mysqladmin -u root -p create UsabilityParticipants_development

Enter password: [return]

Argh. Okay, what's the default mysql password for root? Hmm, I need to set it:

mysqladmin -u root password {whatever}

(Also, shouldn't I be creating non-root accounts for these databases and having custom passwords for each? I have no idea what I'm talking about, really, but I know that "root" usually means "all powerful and really scary things can happen".)

Once again:

ellen-beldners-computer:~ ellen$  mysqladmin -u root -p create UsabilityParticipants_development

Enter password: 

mysqladmin: CREATE DATABASE failed; error: 'Can't create database 'UsabilityParticipants_development'; database exists'

You bastards! You already created the database? Or did I? Fine. Be that way.

{I write a lot more, and then I SAVE this article, and in the meantime my router crashes, so firefox hangs, and i lose a lot.)

Basically, what happens is Apple tells me to set up a migration to specify my database schema. I enter the command and i get an error message 

ellen-beldners-computer:~/UsabilityParticipants ellen$ script/generate migration participant
Cannot find gem for Rails ~>1.2.3.0:
    Install the missing gem with 'gem install -v=1.2.3 rails', or
    change environment.rb to define RAILS_GEM_VERSION with your desired version.

I ponder reinstalling, but that seems really scary given all the ways that Ruby on Rails can fuck your computer up. So I go into my environment.rb file and make it like this:

# RAILS_GEM_VERSION = '1.2.3' unless defined? RAILS_GEM_VERSION
RAILS_GEM_VERSION = '0.9.2'

(My environment variables at localhost:3001 told me I was running 0.9.2'.)

And now my application won't start at all.

# RAILS_GEM_VERSION = '1.2.3' unless defined? RAILS_GEM_VERSION
RAILS_GEM_VERSION = '0.9.2' unless defined? RAILS_GEM_VERSION

doesn't work either. Meh. All right, I'm starting over. Delete the Locomotive Rails ap, delete the files, and create a new one with the same name. Same thing happens: 

Cannot find gem for Rails ~>1.2.3.0:
    Install the missing gem with 'gem install -v=1.2.3 rails', or
    change environment.rb to define RAILS_GEM_VERSION with your desired version.

I don't even know what this means!!! My environment variables are



Ruby version	1.8.6 (i686-darwin8.9.1)

RubyGems version	0.9.2

Rails version	1.2.3

Active Record version	1.15.3

Action Pack version	1.13.3

Action Web Service version	1.2.3

Action Mailer version	1.3.3

Active Support version	1.4.2

Application root	/Users/ellen/UsabilityParticipants

Environment	development

Database adapter	mysql

I think that the Apple site is maybe not my best bet at this point. Google [rails application with locomotive] and the second link or so is an ars technica article. They're usually pretty good.... but not in this case. Did you actually write an article on dragging locomotive into your Applications folder? Assholes. That doesn't tell me anything.

Here's the official Rails tutorial on Migrations. Same command, same problem:

ellen-beldners-computer:~/UsabilityParticipants ellen$ ruby script/generate migration participants
Cannot find gem for Rails ~>1.2.3.0:
    Install the missing gem with 'gem install -v=1.2.3 rails', or
    change environment.rb to define RAILS_GEM_VERSION with your desired version.

After some more searching, I found this lovely tutorial on a first rails app with locomotive. Following all the directions to the letter, I typed



ellen-beldners-computer:~/UsabilityParticipants ellen$ ruby script/generate migration create_participants

      create  db/migrate

      create  db/migrate/001_create_participants.rb

It worked! Yay! I have no idea why it worked this time but didn't before; this time I openend the terminal window from Locomotion, but before, I had doubled checked to ensure I was in the right directory. Weird. Maybe it didn't set up my paths correctly and stuff??

I open the 001_create_participants.rb file. I now need to tell it about my database; but first I take a few minutes to sketch out exactly how I want my pages to flow to ensure that I'm capturing all the information I'll need to make it work.

list of Ruby on Rails migration database datatypes

So I edited my .rb file to be like this: 



class CreateParticipants < ActiveRecord::Migration

  def self.up

      create_table :participants do |table|

      # note that "id" is added implicitly, by default

        table.column :firstname, :string

        table.column :surname, :string

        table.column :namepronunciation, :string

        table.column :email, :string

        table.column :phonenumber, :string

        table.column :country, :string

        table.column :timezone, :string

        table.column :dateofsubmission, :datetime

        table.column :age, :integer

        table.column :gender, :string

        table.column :occupation, :string

        table.column :industry, :string

        table.column :nativelanguage, :string

        table.column :futurecontactokay, :boolean

        table.column :status, :string

  end



  def self.down

        drop_table :participants 

  end

end

I save and type the "rake migrate" command, which results in the extremely unsatisfying

rake aborted!
./db/migrate//001_create_participants.rb:25: syntax error, unexpected $end, expecting kEND

Investigation reveals that I was missing an "end" to close my "do" statement, rerun the command, and get: 



ellen-beldners-computer:~/UsabilityParticipants ellen$ rake migrate --trace

(in /Users/ellen/UsabilityParticipants)

** Invoke migrate (first_time)

** Invoke db:migrate (first_time)

** Invoke environment (first_time)

** Execute environment

** Execute db:migrate

== CreateParticipants: migrating ==============================================

-- create_table(:participants)

   -> 0.0399s

== CreateParticipants: migrated (0.0401s) =====================================



** Invoke db:schema:dump (first_time)

** Invoke environment 

** Execute db:schema:dump

** Execute migrate

The rake task migrate has been deprecated, please use the replacement version db:migrate

ellen-beldners-computer:~/UsabilityParticipants ellen$

So I need to figure out what this updated "db:migrate" thing means. blerrrrrgh..... it means the correct command is

rake db:migrate

Based on the information in the official rails tutorial on migrations, I am now supposed to create a model. Here's what happens:



ellen-beldners-computer:~/UsabilityParticipants ellen$ ruby script/generate model Participant

      exists  app/models/

      exists  test/unit/

      exists  test/fixtures/

      create  app/models/participant.rb

      create  test/unit/participant_test.rb

      create  test/fixtures/participants.yml

      exists  db/migrate

Another migration is already named create_participants: db/migrate/001_create_participants.rb

What does this mean? I don't know. Does it work? Is it broken? Should I do something else? Oh. Scaffolding:



ellen-beldners-computer:~/UsabilityParticipants ellen$ script/generate scaffold participants signup

      exists  app/controllers/

      exists  app/helpers/

      create  app/views/signup

      exists  app/views/layouts/

      exists  test/functional/

  dependency  model

      exists    app/models/

      exists    test/unit/

      exists    test/fixtures/

      create    app/models/participants.rb

      create    test/unit/participants_test.rb

   identical    test/fixtures/participants.yml

      create  app/views/signup/_form.rhtml

      create  app/views/signup/list.rhtml

      create  app/views/signup/show.rhtml

      create  app/views/signup/new.rhtml

      create  app/views/signup/edit.rhtml

      create  app/controllers/signup_controller.rb

      create  test/functional/signup_controller_test.rb

      create  app/helpers/signup_helper.rb

      create  app/views/layouts/signup.rhtml

      create  public/stylesheets/scaffold.css

I'm able to go 

http://localhost:3000/signup
and it works! All right!