Introduction to the Rails environment

• Characteristics of "agile" development
• Installing RUBY and RAILS under your operating system
• Back-end relational database support
• The RAILS application and philosophy
• Overview of MVC: the Model-View-Controller framework
• Starting and running a sample application
• Using digg
• Testing and debugging applications
• mySQL tools in Rail

The Ruby Language

• Review of Object-Oriented Design Methodology
• Objects, variables, classes, methods, instantiation, scope, encapsulation, and inheritance – implemented as Ruby conventions
• RUBY commands and IRB – Interactive Ruby
• Core (built-in) Ruby classes and modules
• Collections, arrays, hashes, strings, numbers, and constants
• Operators and Iterators
• Conditional logic (If, Case, Unless, While, For, Until, Break, Redo, Next, Retry, etc)
• Working with Blocks
• Creating and calling Methods
• Exception classes and error handling

The mySQL Relational Database environment

• Using the mySQL client program
• Starting and stopping mySQL
• Connecting and disconnecting from mySQL
• Specifying connection parameters with Option Files
• Setting up mySQL user accounts
• Obtaining and using metadata
• Importing and exporting data
• Designing transactions in Ruby programs
• mySQL-based session management techniques
• Working with the CGI::Session class

The SQL Language

• Coding SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements
• Using aggregate and scalar functions
• Error handling options
• Cursor management
• Event-driven capabilities in SQL
• Transaction management issues

Database Management and ActiveRecord

• ActiveRecord models and Ruby classes
• mySQL database object creation commands
• Rails-friendly SQL code
• Data integrity in the relational database model
• Validates_method
• Automatic and custom migrations

ActionController and ActionView

• Understanding controllers and views and how they interact
• Rendering commands
• RHTML templating
• Master and partial templates
• Erb: Embedded Ruby
• Layouts and the user interface
• Working with Forms under Rails: form helper methods and ActionPack
• RJS templates and AJAX
• Scaffolding in Rails

Project Automation and Rails Plugins

• Review of available plugins
• Plugin repositories

Debugging, Testing, and Production deployment

• The Ruby test framework
• Session management
• User authentication and login
• Fixtures
• Unit testing
• Integration testing
• Your production environment
• Capistrano