For a long time now I have wanted to rebuild BikeRide.com from the ground up. It is a site I started a long time ago, and I haven’t really given it the attention it deserves. Since I wanted to make a fresh start, I also thought it would be a great time to learn Ruby on Rails. I looked into some other options like the Symfony framework for PHP, or possibly building a site with Drupal, but in the end I chose Rails.
My background has been in using classic ASP, and at ESPN / Disney we use a proprietary scripting language called Tea. So, whether I chose a PHP framework, or Ruby on Rails there would be a learning curve getting used to the syntax.
I followed Dan Benjamin’s steps on setting up a Ruby on Rails development environment on OS X. It was a big help in getting things working. I had a little trouble connecting to mySQL, but that was because I tried to create a database name with an illegal chatacter in the name. Once I figure that out I was good to go.
The first thing I did was install the plugin for Acts as Authenticated which gave me a big head start with setting up a user registration and authentication system.
I am just getting started and I have a lot to learn, but so far I have joined the Ruby on Rails Google Group, and bought the Agile Web Development with Rails book
Some things I have planned for BikeRide.com include a much better events calendar where users will be able up add and manage their own events. Users will be able to check events that they plan to participate in. Sort of similar to Upcoming.org, but just for cycling events.
I plan to move all bike related links to a database backed system where users can suggest new links, and possibly rate, or mark links as a favorite. Links will be organized with tags instead of the single category designation that is there now.
Those are just two of the things I have planned. I have more ideas as well, but I don’t want to give too much away, and I’d first like to get the current main features of events and links, then add to it from there.
