This document discusses how Rails may not be the best tool for rapid prototyping and suggests alternatives that are more lightweight and collaborative. It introduces Serve, an alternative to Rails that uses a simple folder structure and views to quickly prototype ideas without models, controllers or routing. Serve works with popular front-end tools and libraries and can deploy to Heroku. The document argues that prototyping tools should empower all team members, including front-end developers, and that Rack middleware like Rack::Cascade allows reusing mockups and wireframes in a Rails app.

1. Rapid Prototyping with Rails
isn’t
Rapid

2. Rapid Prototyping with Rails
isn’t
Collaborative

3. Rapid Prototyping with Rails
isn’t
Easy

4. $ rails new protoypeapp

5. $ rails generate scaffold ...

6. Models and Controllers

7. Architecting =/= Prototyping

8. $ vi config/database.yml

9. $ mysql -uroot

10. NO

11. A database shouldn’t be
required to brainstorm
ideas

12. Don’t even get me
started on migrations

13. Only Rails
Programmers can
contribute

14. Prototyping should be
All inclusive

16. $ serve create app

17. $ serve create app -j jquery
# Works with jquery jquery-ui Prototype etc.

18. app/
|
+-- config.ru
+-- public/ # Directories for static assets
| +-- stylesheets/ # Compiled stylesheets
| +-- images/
| `-- javascripts/
+-- sass/ # Store Sass source files here
| `-- application.sass
+-- tmp/
| `-- restart.txt # Needed for Passenger
`-- views/ # Store your ERB, Haml, etc. here
+-- _layout.html.erb # Example layout
+-- hello.html.erb # Example view
+-- view_helpers.rb # Example view helpers
`-- stan.html # PLAIN HTML ALSO WORKS!

19. No Models
No Controllers
All views

20. No Routes Either

21. View folders
are
Your Routes

22. All the simplicity of
circa 2004 PHP

23. View Helpers
make it modern

24. $ gem install factory_girl

25. $ gem install faker

26. $ gem install factory_girl_extensions

27. # views/view_helper.rb
FactoryGirl.define do
factory :user do
first_name Faker::Name.first_name #=> John
last_name Faker::Name.last_name #=> Smith
end
end

28. # views/view_helper.rb
class Numeric
def of &block
Array.new(to_i).map &block
end
end
@users = 50.of.User.build
Cheap and easy Data Model

29. # /config.ru
Serve is a Rack app!

31. $ curl get.pow.cx | sh

32. $ cd ~/.pow
$ ln -s /path/to/myapp

33. http://myapp.dev/

34. But, wait

35. Alt-⌘ + ⌘R
takes too long!

36. Guard

37. Guard
$ gem install guard

38. Guard
$ gem install guard-livereload

39. Guard
LiveReload refreshes the
browser so you don’t
have to

40. Guard
Available for Windows, Mac, Linux
on
Firefox, Chrome and Safari
github.com/mockko/livereload

41. Guard
$ guard init livereload

42. Guard
# /Guardfile
guard 'livereload' do
watch(%r{views/.+.(erb|haml|html)})
watch(%r{views/helpers_.rb})
watch(%r{public/.+.(css|js|html)})
end

44. Serve projects are rack apps
so
Heroku likes them

45. Front-End/Designer’s
Perspective

46. Rails is a tool for
backend developers

47. Design in the Browser

48. Contribute more than
sliced PSDs

49. Command-line is
becoming expected as
skill for front-end devs

50. Git isn’t that hard

51. Github & Heroku
=
Great Reasons to Learn

52. Entreprenurs,
Get your ideas done
faster and cheaper

53. Let people who love
HTML do HTML

54. Let Rubyists wrestle
with Rails

55. Empower front-end devs
to
make the backend easier

56. Empower front-end devs
to
make the backend easier
be a part of the process

57. Thank You

58. One more thing...

59. Rails 3 is
a
Rack Application

60. Rack::Cascade
[Enter Stage Left]

61. Rack::Cascade
run Rack::Cascade.new([
MyRailsApp::Application,
serve_polished_protoype,
serve_rough_wireframes
])

62. Rack::Cascade
Reuse
your mockups
and wireframes

63. This has been
Rapid Prototyping FTW!!!
Emmanuel Mwangi
Senior QA Engineer
SendGrid