[ANN] Rails 0.10.0: Routing, Web Services, Components, Oracle

We're plowing through the road map at lightning speed with the release  
of Rails 0.10.0. There's so much good stuff in here this time it's  
really hard to pick just a few bits to focus on for the overview, but  
still I have. With Rails 0.10.0, you'll get:

* *Routing*: Pretty URLs of all flavors and fashions can now be  
specified using an easy to understand Routing syntax made in Ruby. This  
means no more wrestling with mod_rewrite in Apache to get custom URL  
schemes. It means you're not bound to the traditional  
/controller/action/id form (the controller and action names don't even  
have to be part of the URL!). It also means that the URL parsing and  
generation is handled by the same configuration, which removes all the  
labor previously involved in getting your Ruby code to sync with your  
rewrite rules. That makes it possible to share the same URL  
configuration across all the web servers supported by Rails. You can  
seemlessly develop your application on WEBrick and without changes move  
it to Apache or lighttpd. Read more in the Routing book  
[http://manuals.rubyonrails.com/read/book/9], see a bunch of routes  
explained [http://scott.elitists.net/view/17], or dig into the  
ActionController::Base#url_for  
[http://ap.rubyonrails.com/classes/ActionController/Base.html#M000071]  
API documentation.

* *Web Services*: Action Web Service [http://aws.rubyonrails.com/] is a  
whole new add-on framework for Action Pack that enables SOAP with WSDL  
and XML-RPC web services to be made with Rails ease. You can either  
describe an existing controller with an API, and let the clients  
interact with the same methods used to do the HTTP interface, or you  
can create dedicated service classes that can be bound to a controller.  
In addition to the support for building web services, we've also added  
convenient wrappers for calling other web services from your  
application. For getting started, there's a whole book on Action Web  
Service [http://manuals.rubyonrails.com/read/book/10] that explains how  
to define, implement, and interact with the web serivce APIs. We also  
got examples using the GoogleSearch API  
[http://dev.rubyonrails.com/browser/trunk/actionwebservice/examples/ 
googlesearch/] and the metaWeblogApi  
[http://dev.rubyonrails.com/browser/trunk/actionwebservice/examples/ 
metaWeblog/.

* *Components*: With components it's possible to call other actions and  
controllers for their rendered response while executing another action.  
You can either delegate the entire response rendering or you can mix a  
partial response in with your other content. This makes it possible to  
package functionality in reusable parts and to keep more DRY on  
application elements that integrate from many sources (like a  
dashboard). To learn more about components, we have another book  
[http://manuals.rubyonrails.com/read/book/14], a video showing how to  
make and call components  
[http://rubyonrails.org/media/video/clips/components.mov], and the API  
docs  
http://ap.rubyonrails.com/classes/ActionController/Components.html.

* *Oracle*: In addition to the existing adapters for MySQL, PostgreSQL,  
SQLite, SQL Server, and DB2, we now also support Oracle as a database  
option for Active Record. The adapter that made it in is built on top  
of OCI8 and has been confirmed to work great with Oracle 8i and 9i. Our  
sixth database adapter is documented in the API  
[http://ar.rubyonrails.com/classes/ActiveRecord/ConnectionAdapters/ 
OCIAdapter.html].

But there's a world of additional new and fixed stuff in 0.10.0. See  
the other whole new package Active Support [http://as.rubyonrails.com/]  
and check the changelogs:

* Active Record: http://ar.rubyonrails.com/files/CHANGELOG.html
* Action Pack  : http://ap.rubyonrails.com/files/CHANGELOG.html
* Action Mailer: http://am.rubyonrails.com/files/CHANGELOG.html
* Rails        : http://rails.rubyonrails.com/files/CHANGELOG.html


Honoring Nicholas Seckar and Leon Breedt
----------------------------------------

The two most important features in this release has been contributed to  
two relative newcomers to the Rails scene. Nicholas Seckar tried at  
least three attempts at Routing before we found the one that felt like  
the best Rails fit. He put an enormous amount of energy into sorting  
out all the complications and have since helped to improve all parts of  
Rails. You've done a superb job, Nicholas. May potential employeers  
looking for talent see your name.

Equal thanks goes to Leon Breedt that popped out of nowhere with a  
whole new framework that followed our established conventions and  
approach to the dot. The quality of the code and documentation has made  
a big impression on the existing team of core contributors. And the  
work has  contributed to make us all the much closer to 1.0. Thanks for  
the excellent work, Leon!


So how far away is Rails 1.0?
-----------------------------

Rails 1.0 moved much closer today as we knocked off well over half of  
the previously announced <a  
href="http://weblog.rubyonrails.com/archives/2005/01/06/road-map-the- 
rails-leading-to-10/">road map</a>. What we primarily lack now is  
Packaging and Performance alongside the aim to bring the number of  
uninvestigated and/or fixed <a  
href="http://dev.rubyonrails.com/report/1">fault tickets</a> down to  
zero. The current tentative date is end of March/start of April.


Upgrading from Rails 0.9.5 to 0.10.0
------------------------------------

If you don't have any custom URLs defined in your existing application,  
then it's a fairly straight forward process to upgrade. If you do have  
custom URLs, it's a bit more work, but definitely manageable. Basecamp  
used a lot of custom URL tricks and it took me under an hour and  
resulted in 100 lines of code being stripped from the application. In  
any case, we've created a book to guide the upgrade process  
[http://manuals.rubyonrails.com/read/book/15].