Real-world Complex Rails applications? [closed]

Question

For my self-education purposes, I would like to investigate the code of a complex Ruby On Rails (preferably 3) business application(s) so that I can get the feel of how to do things in the real world with Rails.

There are tons of "another blog" or "another CMS", but I am really looking into a Rails app with pretty high complexity (in terms of business rules), but not only the CRUDs.

Something like Real-estate systems must be complex enough. Or maybe in the government area (which is always complex by definition :) ).

Thanks.

Chessman

Content management systems can be fairly complex. Drupal has around 300k lines of code just in core. That seems like a very arbitrary requirement to not include CMSs in your sample. Do you have a reason specifically for not wanting to look at one? – Confucius

Not really, I am against Blogs/CMSs because people often demo creating such apps (including Rails site itself and even Rails Tutorial does similar ~ twitter). But I would really love to see more business oriented application. – Chessman

The Real World Rails repo brings 100+ open source Rails apps together in one repository using git submodules. Apps include US and UK government sponsored efforts. github.com/eliotsykes/real-world-rails – Indiscerptible

Answer 1

There are a lot of complex projects you can take a look too.

Like:

diaspora (RoR 3) a social netwok

Spree (RoR 3) an e-commerce solution

Redmine (RoR 2.3) a project management web application

... and so on ...

but, as Fábio Batista said, "I can safely assume that I never really learned anything by just reading other people's code... Getting your hands dirty is the best way to learn anything.".

So my advice is to follow tutorials (Ruby on Rails Guides and Ruby on Rails Tutorial) and screencasts (Railscast by Ryan Bates, RubyPulse and Teach Me To Code) learn Ruby metaprogramming (Metaprogramming Ruby book), look into some well structured gems (like devise) and write code ;)

Seawright

Answer 2

The church.io app seems full of Rails goodness yet is still decently simple.

Ectophyte

Answer 3

Have a look at all the open source rails applications on http://www.opensourcerails.com/. I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for.

Update : see RefineryCMS for example, for a Rails 3 application : http://www.opensourcerails.com/projects/340847-RefineryCMS

Surveillance

RefinerCMS is just another CMS. Would you be able to recommend a bit more "business" oriented app from the OSS-Rails? There are plenty of projects there, but I am not sure which one fits to what I want to see. – Chessman

No, I'm sorry. I realized after posting that I was pointing you to another CMS, although you mentionned you were not looking for another CMS or Blog. I can't find any other large interesting rails 3 application source, even on that site. – Surveillance

Answer 4

I think it's kinda hard to find that kind of code on the web, not just for Ruby but any language. I'm currently writing 2 business-heavy Rails applications, but they are not open-source.

One thing I did while learning was to start rewriting apps I wrote on the past (C# mainly) using Rails... This way you'll have "real" business requirements to work with, and will get a taste of the platform.

I work with programming for 12 years now, and I can safely assume that I never really learned anything by just reading other people's code... Getting your hands dirty is the best way to learn anything.

Frimaire

Good point. Thanks. That's what I've had in mind reqrite a ASP.NET MVC app to Ruby On Rails and get the feel of that. But before doing that want to have couple of apps that I would use a reference and golden standard when technical questions would arise. – Chessman

Answer 5

I don't know about you, but I always think that e-commerce apps are complex as there is credit card transaction in it. It would take me years if not months to get it right. If you are like me, then maybe you would be interested to see spree.

Rensselaerite

I am not sure what is complex in transaction processing. Under complex I meant different business rules that application should follow. Example is legislation. – Chessman

Have you done e-commerce apps before? – Rensselaerite

Yep. Also done much more complex that e-commerce (including recurring payments processing, collection etc). – Chessman