Going into the last week of Phase 2 of the coding bootcamp, it was a relief to get passed the code challenge and start to see some steps beginning to feel automatic. Remembering syntax and some processes still take time but repetition proved worthwhile when it came to starting an app.
To get an app started with Ruby on Rails, the repetition of the below steps got me through Phase 2:
cd into a folder and create app: rails new story-app
launch server with rails s and got to localhost:3000 on browser: “Yay! You’re on Rails!”
set up models: rails g model user username age:integer location
rails g story title genre user_id:integer user: belongs_to
link relationships between objects:
class User < ApplicationRecord
has_many :stories
end
class Story < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :user
end
if planning to include validations, add them to the classes:
class User < ApplicationRecord
has_many :stories
validates :username, presence: true
end
class Story < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :user
validates :title, uniqueness: true
validates :genre, presence: true
end
run migrations and check schema: rails db:migrate
db/schema.rb
seed data by creating user and story instances in seeds.rb and run rails db:seed
verify relationships between class objects in the console: rails c
User.first.stories
Story.last.user
rails s: run the server and go to http://localhost:3000 in browser:
create controllers (include standard ones; later remove those not needed):
rails g controller users index show new create edit update destroy
rails g controller stories index show new create edit update destroy
add routes (resources for all paths, or enter each path individually):
resources :users
get ‘/users/show’, to: ‘users#show’, as: ‘show_user’
resources :stories
get ‘/stories/new’, to: ‘stories#new’, as: ‘new_story’
add view files:
app/views/users/show.html.erb
app/view/stories/new.html.erb
add instance variables to methods in controllers; method names reflect names of html.erb:
def show
@user = User.find(params[:id])
end
def new
@story = Story.new
end
One will read lots of documentation in class and take many notes from lecture videos; these are useful. By actually typing code over and over again, repeating similar steps, muscle memory builds that leads to greater understanding and confidence. May these steps save you some time and get you started faster on your next project.
