From: Kirk Haines <khaines@...>
Date: 2004-08-28T08:23:33+09:00
Subject: Re: Implementing an Online Book Store

On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 07:20:21 +0900, Matthew Margolis wrote
> I will be implementing a medium sized online book store over the 
> next few months.  I would like to do most(if not all) of the backend 
> in ruby.  I don't have any real experience building large database 
> driven online stores so I was hoping for some suggestions as to 
> which frameworks/libraries might prove useful.  I am currently 
> planning on using mysql to store everything and paypal for payments.

Using an object/relational mapping layer can make things SO MUCH easier to 
develop.  There are several available.  Mine is Kansas:  
http://rubyforge.org/projects/kansas

David HH has ActiveRecord, which a lot of people like:  Uh, I believe you 
can find it at the Ruby On Rails site:  http://www.rubyonrails.org 
somewhere.  Rails is a complete framework that includes the web pieces and 
the ORM pieces.  Check it all out there.

I also have a good framework, IOWA, at http://enigo.com/projects/iowa, that 
I have used in many production apps and sites in the last couple of years.

There are others.  Lafcadio (at http://rubyforge.com/projects/lafcadio) is 
an ORM originally written specifically to work with MySQL.  It's a stable 
package.

There are lots of other web app frameworks, too.  Cerise is one of the 
oldest.  It's at Rubyforge, too.  My suggestion is to do a tour of several 
of the options and see which one seems to appeal to you.  One might just fit 
the way you think or the way you want to work better than others.

If you try either of mine (Kansas or Iowa), give me a shout if you have any 
questions.


Thanks,

Kirk Haines