Getting started with Rails for the benefit of everyone
This book is designed as an introduction to building and containerizing a Ruby on Rails application. It explains common development tasks that you will encounter when building Rails applications – adding nested resources, a JavaScript framework (Stimulus.js), Bootstrap CSS styles, and Sidekiq and Redis to process background jobs. Once you have an application ready for development, the last part of this book will guide you through containerizing your Rails application for continued development.
Often, resources on development and deployment are relatively independent of one another: guides on containers and Kubernetes rarely cover application development, and tutorials on languages and frameworks are often focused on languages and other nuances rather than on deployment. This book is designed to be a full-stack introduction to containers and Kubernetes by way of Rails application development. It assumes that readers want an introduction not only to the fundamentals of containerization, but also to the basics of working with Rails and a database backend.
The goal for this guide is to serve readers interested in Rails application development, as well as readers who would like to learn more about working with containers and container orchestrators. It assumes a shared interest in moving away from highly individuated local environments, in favor of repeatable, reproducible application environments that ensure consistency and ultimately resiliency over time.