Travel Rails in Style with Hobo 1.0
The Hobo team has popped the cork on Hobo 1.0, a mere three years after its original beta release. Hobo is a collection of extensions for Ruby on Rails to greatly simplify Web application development using Ruby on Rails.
The goal of Hobo is to enable developers to do less developing. Well, to write less code to get to the destination, anyway. Hobo includes a number of plugins to ease everything from implementing AJAX interfaces to connecting to a database. Hobo also sports its own mark-up language, the Don't Repeat Yourself Markup Language (DRYML), which are designed to simplify creating site templates.
If you're new to Hobo, check out the Hobo Cookbook for some tasty Hobo recipes. You too can have a basic Hobo app up and running in two minutes, assuming you already have a working Rails 2.2 install. Naturally, the Cookbook is implemented in Hobo as well, and the code for the Hobo Cookbook is hosted on GitHub like the rest of Hobo. Hobo is distributed under the MIT License, so it's suitable for virtually any project.
If you're new to Rails and want to get started in a hurry, the Bitnami folks have a RubyStack with all the Rails fixins, with a side of Ruby on Rails 3 beta for the adventurous.
Hobo can be installed as a Ruby Gem, instructions can be found in the Hobo Cookbook. Users who have been riding the Rails with the last release candidate for 1.0 will find little changed in the the final release.
Want an idea what can be done with Hobo? The Hobo site features a gallery of sites built with the framework, including Indie band Websites, sports league management sites, and a job listing resource for arts and culture in Ohio.
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier is a freelance writer and editor with more than 10 years covering IT. Formerly the openSUSE Community Manager for Novell, Brockmeier has written for Linux Magazine, Sys Admin, Linux Pro Magazine, IBM developerWorks, Linux.com, CIO.com, Linux Weekly News, ZDNet, and many other publications. You can reach Zonker at jzb@zonker.net and follow him on Twitter.