This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by David Heinemeier Hansson. Original Post: Celebrating 1,000 downloads of Rails! Feed Title: Loud Thinking Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LoudThinking Feed Description: All about the full-stack, web-framework Rails for Ruby and on putting it to good effect with Basecamp Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by David Heinemeier Hansson Latest Posts From Loud Thinking

I'm really on vacation, but through my 2kb/sec GPRS connection from the mobile phone, I spotted that an amazing milestone has been reached for Rails. In the first two weeks since release, Rails has been downloaded more than 1,000 times (the RubyForge DL count + 35 due to a reset).

I'm extremely pleased with its sweeping uptake and with all the lavish praise it has gathered already. Just this morning, I received the following email from Gleb Arshinov:

I write systems code (C++, database kernels, app servers, http proxies, etc.) for a living, so web development is not usually my cup of tea... I've been helping a friend to get a custom CRM system for their office. I wrote up an MRD and was looking to offshore the development.

Then Rails came along, and now I am writing it myself :-) It's too much fun, and I think I can get it going in less time that it would take me to manage somebody else's work. That's considering that I don't know Ruby. I mean, I have a pilot running and I still don't know Ruby — I barely had to write any code :-)

So, cudos!

That certainly made my morning!

Anyway, as a thank-you-all note from the lovely island of Bornholm, I've completed the GEM for Rails. It's a tiny little thing as it's basically just dependencies. I had Chad Fowler test it out (my connection here isn't really to triggering a dependency download swirl). Here's what he got:

$ gem query -rn rails

*** REMOTE GEMS ***

rails (0.6.0)
   Web-application framework with template engine,
   control-flow layer, and ORM.
$ sudo gem install -r rails
Attempting remote installation of 'rails'
Install required dependency activerecord? [Yn] y
Install required dependency actionpack? [Yn] y
Successfully installed rails, version 0.6.0

$ mkdir -p ~/code/ruby/
$ rails ~/code/ruby/weblog
(in /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-0.6.0)
rm -rf /Users/chadfowler/code/ruby/weblog
mkdir /Users/chadfowler/code/ruby/weblog
mkdir /Users/chadfowler/code/ruby/weblog/app
mkdir /Users/chadfowler/code/ruby/weblog/config
mkdir /Users/chadfowler/code/ruby/weblog/config/environments
mkdir /Users/chadfowler/code/ruby/weblog/db
....etc.
$ cd ~/code/ruby/weblog
$ scp -r chad@www.chadfowler.com:/path/to/my/rails/app .
$ vi config/database.yml
$ ruby public/dispatch.servlet &
$ open http://localhost:3000/contacts/


And Chad continued: "SUCCESS! :) It's ready to release/announce. Of course, it's already in the gem repository. THANK YOU for bringing such wonderful stuff to the world of gems."