Oh, and what's up with the web server reqs?

My understanding is that it's hard to get the update order correct automatically in the face of foreign key constraints. It could probably be done, but the authors of Rails don't feel like it's important enough to do. And it would probably be difficult to maintain across database servers.

The server requirements are due to the fact that a Rails app is expensive to load the first time. If you tried to run it via CGI and paid the load cost for each transaction it would be too slow. So you have to keep it resident, either via FastCGI or something like mongrel.

Rails is also a single-threaded framework, so each running instance of your application can only handle one request at a time. This usually means you need to run a couple of instances in a cluster to get quick enough response times.

This is changing, though, as someone has created an apache module (http://www.modrails.com/) that can host Rails applications.

God bless the geeks and the things they'll give away.

eta:

This usually means you need to run a couple of instances in a cluster to get quick enough response times.

How out of the box is this? I mean, if I install the RPMs on my box, have I gotten myself into the web server config business?

It has no support for using foreign key constraints or stored procedures, and if you try to use them anyway it can be quite painful.

OK lost me at no support for foreign key constraints. Maybe it is a matter of having written too many applications where FK contraints were critical. But I don't think I'd like the design philosophy of a system that considered foreign key constraints "not worth the trouble".

Not as strong on stored procedures. But really, there are occasions when they are critical too - as in you want to use a database, but you want to make sure you maintain security and integrity even if someone accesses it outside your application. Of course most databases have ways of turning stored procedures off.

Anyway, I admit there is more room for argument on stored procedures. But no foreign key contraints? Huh.

How out of the box is this? I mean, if I install the RPMs on my box, have I gotten myself into the web server config business?

Before mod_rails, you had some significant apache configuration to do. With mod_rails it might be easier.

But I don't think I'd like the design philosophy of a system that considered foreign key constraints "not worth the trouble".

It's a lot of trouble to figure out from the constraints what a legal order is to write a set of mapped objects to the database. In fact, there may not even be a legal order.

That's not to say Rails doesn't provide some very nice validation tools. It just that they choose to do it in the application layer, rather than the database layer. Certainly a more appealing approach for an application writer than a database analyst.

At the very least, reading the framework docs helps tidy up my thoughts for code that perhaps doesn't warrant full Ruby on Rails treatment. MVC is dreamy.

I hate validation beyond about every other bit of coding, and streamlining the reporting and presentation was always frustrating. I like seeing how others do it.

What's the equivalent of mapping at logon with OS X? When I fired up bittorrent for a download I connected to a network drive for the destination. Upon restarting the machine and restarting Azureus it says the destination file is not found, even if I reconnect the same network drive.

In Azureus the destination is listed as /Volumes/MSHOME;BLAISE-2/Yadda Yadda. When I reconnect, the destination is /Volumes/MSHOME;BLAISE. What's up with the -2 deal? How do I make this more consistent? How can I statically refer to a Samba share, hopefully without having to manually make the connection in Finder?

Apple extended warranty - good idea or not? (A friend is buying a Mac right now.)

eta: This will be for a MacBook. She generally doesn't take her laptop with her....

She's calling me back in a few minutes....

Definitely, especially for laptops.

Apple extended warranty - good idea or not? (A friend is buying a Mac right now.)

Extended Apple Care? Definitely a good idea.