MVC Ruby in Less Than 5K. The Wonder of Camping

In this presentation titled "MVC Ruby in Less Than 5K: The Wonder of Camping," Karl Weber delves into the resurrection of Camping, a nearly 20-year-old Ruby micro web framework. He highlights how the simplicity and elegance of Ruby allow for the creation of a fully-featured MVC framework with very little code. Weber emphasizes the original creator, why the lucky stiff, who developed Camping with a unique and compact approach to web application development.

Key Points Discussed:

* Introduction to Camping:

- Camping is described as a model-view-controller (MVC) micro framework designed for web development.

- It embodies simplicity, allowing developers to write web applications in minimal code—approximately 5,181 bytes for the entire framework.

Ruby's Flexibility:
- Ruby's object-oriented nature and expressive syntax enables powerful yet compact code.
- Key features include writing an entire app in a single file, utilizing Rack for compatibility, and leveraging Ruby’s dynamic capabilities for file lookups and templating.
MVC Concept:
- Weber explains the MVC architecture, highlighting how Camping separates data, interface, and application logic, facilitating cleaner code organization.
Core Features of Camping:
- Attributes like routing, model definition, and plugin support are accessible with minimal code, including filters for common actions.
- Examples show how Camping integrates models directly with the SQL gem, enhancing support for active record.
Plugins and Extensibility:
- Camping supports extensions or plugins, called "Camping Gear," that can modify existing functionalities and introduce new features easily, echoing the design approach of Sinatra.
Community and Philosophical Insights:
- Weber shares his motivations for enhancing Camping, focusing on creating an inclusive and resilient community around Ruby development. He reflects on the importance of diversity and the strength of community in programming.
Practical Applications:
- The talk also demonstrates quick implementations, such as building a blog in three minutes, showcasing the framework’s usability for both beginners and seasoned developers.
Final Thoughts and Vision for the Future:
- Weber emphasizes the value of simplicity and creativity in web development, urging the audience to embrace Ruby's unique capabilities in their projects.
- He aims to continue improving Camping to ensure it remains accessible and functional for new developers while supporting an inclusive community.

Overall, the presentation argues for the effectiveness of using Ruby with Camping as an ideal solution for building micro web frameworks fitting within small projects and for learning web development basics.

MVC Ruby in Less Than 5K. The Wonder of Camping
Karl Weber • November 15, 2024 • Chicago, IL • Talk

Learn about the journey to resurrect an almost 20 year old ruby library, And all the amazing Ruby tricks it uses to be a fully featured MVC Web Framework.

Ruby's semantics allow remarkable flexibility, and robustness. Let's walk through how Camping uses Ruby's best & hidden features to make a fully featured MVC Micro Web Framework, in a ridiculously small amount of code.

Ruby's maturity promotes innovation and stability. Camping is almost 20 years old, and sat derelict unchanged for almost 8 years. To get it running with the latest versions of Ruby and its dependencies took only a couple of code changes.

Camping isn't just another small micro framework written by a mad genius. It's the BEST ONE. Its small size and compact architecture makes it ideal for beginners, side projects, and small apps.

# Key Takeaways.
* Ruby is OP (Over Powered) and makes everything possible.
* Framework Plugins in Ruby in a couple of lines of code.
* Full Featured web server in like 100 bytes.
* Put your whole app in one file.
* Dynamic file lookups for views in a single line of Ruby.
* Templating in 4 lines of Ruby? Yes!
* HTML, CSS, Javascript... In your RUBY!
* Rack conventions make ruby incredibly reliable, extensible, and extremely badass.
* And more

* Steps to ressurect Camping.
* It doesn't run.
* It Runs.
* What does it do? Times ten. (Lots of small examples of interesting Ruby code that does interesting things in Camping)
* Writing more tests.
* Ok so it's actually broken and I didn't know and now it's fixed again.
* Am I a Ruby Expert now?
* No.

# Session Highlights
Ruby is great
You can do so much with so little in Ruby
How to make a Blog in 3 minutes
Yes it's less than 5k
Stickers

Bonus I have physical boxed copies of Ruby Camping that you can win or buy.

RubyConf 2024