Often when developing applications, the most difficult part is not creating the application, but getting it to work with other systems. This can also be the case with Ruby on Rails, particularly during the early stages of development.

In the early years of Rails, it was a common experience for new developers to be creating useful Rails code within hours of their first introduction to the framework. Then, it would take them days of research, head scratching, and many reconfigurations to get their chosen web server to work well with their new Rails application. Getting the connection to work between the Rails application and the web server was often more difficult than writing the Rails code. Fortunately, the web server connection headaches are a thing of the past, but this example illustrates that a guide, which simply described how to write Rails code would leave a developer with some difficult problems to solve before they could roll out a complete solution. Therefore, some effort is made here not only to describe how to create a Rails

application, but also how to get it to work with the operating system that will host it and the services that will interact with it.

There are a number of tools that aid the developer to both generate and maintain a good development environment. For example, an integrated development environment (IDE) can make writing and working with code easier. Version control systems provide many useful tools for a developer; especially if the developer works in a team. This book is not a guide to these tools, but does describe how to configure the tools and the Rails environment so that they work together.