Starting a new ruby on rails development can be confusion. I've tried, for this talk to summarize all the different choices you'll have to make.

1. Starting new Rails development ?
not_act_as_sheep

2. Ruby

3. Ruby 1.8.x
Exists since 2003
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Current stable version
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All gems should be compatible
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Slowest version
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Problems with garbage collector
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4. Ruby Enterprise edition
Developed by Phusion team
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Fully compatible with Ruby 1.8.6
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Memory print optimisation
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Garbage collection improvement
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5. Ruby 1.9.x
Stable (since 1.9.1)
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Memory print improvement
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Garbage collector improvement
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Not all gems are compatible
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6. Web server and App server

7. Web servers and App servers
Web server
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Apache
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Lighthttpd
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Nginx
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App server
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Mongrel
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Thin
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Passenger (aka Mod_Rails)
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8. Databases

9. Different databases available
Sqlite3
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Mysql
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PostgreSql
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Oracle
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10. Testing

11. TDD vs BDD
What's Test-Driven Development ?
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Software design method
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Short development iteration
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What's Behaviour-Driven Development ?
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Software design method
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Use comprehensive specification in your native
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language

12. Testing Frameworks
(and friends)
Testing frameworks
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Test::Unit
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Rspec
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Shoulda
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Mocking
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Mocha
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Flexmock
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RR
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Working with fixtures
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Fixtures
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Factory girl
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Machinist
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13. Templating

14. Templating format
Html/Erb
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HAML
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Textile (using RedCloth)
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Markaby
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Markdown (using BlueCloth)
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15. Plugins

16. Authentication
Restful_Authentication
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Historically the oldest
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Probably currently the most used
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The most complete
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Cleareance
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Easy setup
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Easy syntax
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Authlogic
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Lighter implementation
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17. Attachment
Attachement_fu
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Historically the first Rails attachment plugin
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Polymorphism
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Complex but customizable
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Paperclip
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Newer
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Lighter
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No polymorphism
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Works without Rmagick
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18. Other useful plugins
Will_paginate
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act_as_rated
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act_as_comentable
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Thinking Sphinx
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19. Conclusion

20. What should I choose ?
There is not better solution than the
one you're comfortable with !!
not_act_as_sheep

21. Slides provided by Nicolas Alpi
Credits
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kattenmeisje/501105007/
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