SQL on Rails Launched

Daniel writes "Developers have created a new Rails framework for SQL, SQL on Rails. Check out the screen cast that shows you how to develop an internet search engine with three lines of code. Version 4.1 of the SQL on Rails framework is available for download on the site, and the O'Reilly title is expected to hit shelves next month." ZOMG L@@K at the kitten site it powers!@#!11

really insightful

[Zugot]

this has to be one of the best put together april fools jokes i have seen in a long time. i'm impressed.

It was

[technoextreme]

this has to be one of the best put together april fools jokes i have seen in a long time. i'm impressed.

It was until their sever was slashdoted.

Re:It was

[whoop]

'Tis sad that we must wait until April 2 to be fooled.

Ponies ruul!!

Re:really insightful

[choongiri]

Firefox can't find the server at www2.sqlonrails.orgscreencast.

OMFG!!! like, i mean, LIKE even PONIES know to put the trailing slash at the end of their apache redirects when getting /.ed!!! n000bi3s!!!!LOL!

Re:really insightful

[simon_hibbs2]

Yep, pretty good. If they'd gone for Fortran on Rails or COBOL instead of SQL it would've been funnier but more obviously a gag.

LISP on rails though - that's where the action is!

I wouldn't have thought, but...

[msmercenary]

... there are days when it's actually a good thing to be among the 6% of males that are color-blind. Today is one such day.

Re:I wouldn't have thought, but...

[billster0808]

I'd say any day you come to /. is a good day to be color blind.

Re:I wouldn't have thought, but...

[Zedrick]

Most of us (6%) are Red-green color blind. Unfortunately that doesn't prevent us from seeing pink (or red/green - Red-green color blindness doesn't really matter in real life. And yes, I can see both Red and Green despite the so-called Red-green color blindness).

Re:Fix

[mrshoe]

The screencast link in the story doesn't work, but if you follow the first link to sqlonrails.org, then click the screencast link, you can get to the screencast.

Re:Who else thinks...

[toriver]

This is Slashdot in normal mode: Now they are linking to other sites' stories (as they usually do), except the stories are April Fool's articles.

(Personally I am waiting for QBasic on Rails.)

Yes, but...

[smudge8]

Damn it, I can't think of anything funny to say. I'm all April Fools'ed out.

Re:Yes, but...

[ScytheBlade1]

You think this year is bad?

You ought to take a look at last years [slashdot.org] April Fools. (Note the page length, number of stores, and content [slashdot.org], or lack thereof.)


We haven't seen ANYTHING yet.

Re:Yes, but...

[idonthack]

Rotors: S L A
Stecker-board: SH DO TX
stcfi lvbpr ypupz keful kcjds vfkjb dvmar rgopd johax lwzzm eoddu ztcqk

Re:Yes, but...

[vdboor]

The download even has a Makefile and configure. :-)

From the INSTALL documentation in the download:

You don't need to be root because the SQL On Rails installer will just use the appropriate priviledge escalation method for your OS version.

ghehe..

Awesome, but can it run on an Intel Mac?

[Kelson]

I've been trying to set up a new web server running in a VMWare instance of Fedora Core 5 on Windows XP Home booting on an Intel Mac. Anyone know if SQL on Rails is compatible with this setup?

Re:Awesome, but can it run on an Intel Mac?

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

I've been trying to set up a new web server running in a VMWare instance of Fedora Core 5 on Windows XP Home booting on an Intel Mac. Anyone know if SQL on Rails is compatible with this setup?

Yes. Actually, it's good that you have all this, 'cause SQL on Rails, according to the screencast, only runs on OS X PPC. Now Rosetta has only been out for a couple of months, and it's non-Free, so we can't be sure it works. Within your FC5 on VMWare, launch PearPC (which is thankfully OSS) and get it to run OS X PPC.

Re:Awesome, but can it run on an Intel Mac?

[tb3]

Geez! Are you the guy that keeps asking this same question every 5 minutes on #sqlonrails? RTMFM already!

Re:Awesome, but can it run on an Intel Mac?

[m50d]

I think you'll need to use wine.

Re:Awesome, but can it run on an Intel Mac?

[bladesjester]

I'd advocate the use of scotch. I don't think wine is strong enough in this case =]

Stop Visiting SQLonRails.org

[dduardo]

I'm trying to download the development files and you're all slowing me down.

The only SQL you really need

[ThatGeek]

select story from queue where april_fools_day_joke != 'crap;

Re:The only SQL you really need

[Xavic]

You have an error in your sql near ';'

Re:The only SQL you really need

[Senzei]

You have an error in your sql near ';'

More evidence that at least half of the commentary on slashdot is actually handled by bots. That said it does make for a good code checking system.

Re:The only SQL you really need

[technoextreme]

select story from queue where april_fools_day_joke != 'crap;

Yeah the editors kept on trying that but all they got was error messages.

Re:The only SQL you really need

[ptomblin]

0 rows returned

It would be awesome

[scwizard]

It would be awesome if during April fools all of this stuff turned out to be true.
Then at midnight everything went back to normal.

Woe is me

[mattpointblank]

I feel like a total n00b. I spent all last summer learning php/MySQL to redesign my site, and I only now realise it's pronounced 'Sequel' as opposed to "S-Q-L" as I'd been mentally calling it. Similarly, it took me a Java course at university to learn how to say C#.. the issues of being a lonely geek without others to converse with (in real life) and learn proper pronunciations.

Re:Woe is me

[Nicholas Evans]

Too bad it is pronounced S-Q-L.

Re:Woe is me

[redalien]

Well, neither in a computer science department or commercial firms have I ever heard it called sequel, I think it's not in common use in the U.K..

Re:Woe is me

[blincoln]

Well, neither in a computer science department or commercial firms have I ever heard it called sequel, I think it's not in common use in the U.K.

That may be. However, I'm in the US, and every DBA I've worked with has pronounced it "sequel." I think it sounds a lot better than another TLA too.

Re:Woe is me

[Mark_Hopkins]

That may be. However, I'm in the US, and every DBA I've worked with has pronounced it "sequel." I think it sounds a lot better than another TLA too.

I call it "squeal" just to piss off my DBA.

Re:Woe is me

[jZnat]

I call it "skwul" (unstressed 'u') since "mai-skwul" was so easy to say a couple years ago.

OLE or Olay?

[Latent Heat]

Back when it was cool to know about OLE in Windows, I would call it oh-el-ee, even when corrected to call it oley (as in ole with the accent on the e as what people chant at the bull fight). I was a noob to call it oh-el-ee, but I was just not going to dignify the Microsoft Offering de Jour by calling it oley.

Re:OLE or Olay?

[CheeseTroll]

I'd never heard of it as anything but O-L-E, but I apparently I wasn't hanging around with the cool programmers. :-)

A couple of years ago, I was working with a guy who insisted on referring to D-L-L's as "dills". That made me chuckle every time.

Re:OLE or Olay?

[blincoln]

You know, that's an interesting point. I hate pronouncing OLE "oh-lay" and I want to punch people who pronounce URL like the title "Earl." So why do I pronounce SQL "sequel"?

I think it's because it seems fairly benign and neutral. "Oh-lay" makes me picture someone dancing around with a sombrero on their head, a rapier in one hand, and a jar of expensive face cream in the other. "Earl" is very close to both "Urkel" and the "durrrrrrrrrr" that implies drool running down one's face.

Re:Woe is me

[stevey]

I work in a database shop in Edinburgh and I've heard it called S-Q-L and Sequel pretty much interchangably.

The most grating pronunciation I've ever heard was one manage who used to read HTML as "H-tim-el".

I always wondered who Tim was...

Re:Woe is me

[redalien]

I'd guess TBL [w3.org].

Re:Woe is me

[j79]

Woe is me, err, us. I, too, mentally call it "S-Q-L". Now I'm afraid that PHP may be something like, "FFIIPP", and XML "XEMUL"??

Re:Woe is me

[SillySnake]

Wow you really got suckered in by that part of the April Fools joke :)

Re:Woe is me

[Fez]

What, you mean it's not pronounced SQuirreL?!

Re:Woe is me

[the_womble]

it took me a Java course at university to learn how to say C#

So how do you pronounce it? Is it "see octothorpe [wiktionary.org] or "see hash"?

Its not just MS either, "guh-nome [n0i.net]" is just as bad.

Re:Woe is me

[glesga_kiss]

So how do you pronounce it? Is it "see octothorpe or "see hash"?

I'm guessing you've never played a musical instrument then? This one time, at band camp, we called it "c sharp".

Re:Woe is me

[mattpointblank]

Haha, good point, I guess it never occured to me that it might be some kind of musical annotation, even though I am actually a longtime musician. Doh..

Re:Woe is me

[swilde23]

I always thought it was "See Pound" :)

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Woe is me

[rbarreira]

Where I work everyone calls it Sequel. I find it really stupid but I'm getting used to say it too, since I don't want to explain what I mean by S-Q-L everytime I say it...

Re:Woe is me

[mbelly]

I'm with you on that one. I always called it S-Q-L, and it bothered me when people called it Sequel. Unfortunately, I had to transition to calling it sequel at work, because nobody around here can spell.

Re:Woe is me

[redalien]

I've got that for SWF. I used to call them S-W-F, but from working with a flash developer I now call them swifs.

Re:Woe is me

[slazzy]

I still call it structured query language every time, but then I'm a real geek.

Re:Woe is me

[slazzy]

I take that back, a real geek can speak in SQL.

Re:Woe is me

[mikiN]

So real geese can squeal? I think you're stating the obvious here.
Oh, you meant geeks! Well, what's the difference if all they do is discuss 'drop'ping water 'table's and rant about the latest phishing exploit?

Here's the source code for Google.com!

[theurge14]

SELECT * FROM interweb WHERE results LIKE %i'm feeling lucky!!!!!`11`%;

That's it. SQL on rails is awesome.

Re:Here's the source code for Google.com!

[Tablizer]

Okay, but when I hit the monkey, I got "Error: Access to table 'monkey_brains' denied. 'white-house' domain is read-only."

Actually, SQL needs to be on rails.

[AtariDatacenter]

Traditionally with SQL, a user is capable of perfoming one or more unrestrained queries, which can bring a traditional database to its knees. What SQL has been lacking, up until this point, is stability and restraint. This is why rails are necessary for SQL.

Rails help to keep SQL on the tracks and to prevent queries from running unrestrained against a database. With rails, you don't have to worry about unsafe queries against your database. Everything is tightly controlled, and you can have a simple three line search engine without a great deal of overhead that normally goes into all of that normalization, checking, deadlock prevention, etc etc.

Finally! I'm waiting for HTML on Rails next!

Re:Actually, SQL needs to be on rails.

[mikiN]

Finally! I'm waiting for HTML on Rails next!

Just post on Slashdot and extract the HTML for the posting. That and the Lameness Filter will get you back on track lickety---quick!
Who needs images, frames, <BLINK> tags and all that when all you need are text, links and a few very basic decorations?
Hail the CERN text-mode browser! Ho! Ho!

Neat, but necessary?

[wetfeetl33t]

So SQL on rails is supposed to be "taking the VC out of MVC"
Seems handy, but stuff like this really shouldn't be oversimplified. Since when has the "view" and "controller" been considered unimportant?

Re:Neat, but necessary?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're kind of an idiot, aren't you.

Re:Neat, but necessary?

[SIWaters]

And I thought the "VC" stood for venture capital. Silly me.

MS-DOS terminal

[yroJJory]

OMG!!! I love the MS-DOS 3.2 Terminal window under Mac OS X. :):):)

Re:MS-DOS terminal

[tjr]

Me too!

Re:MS-DOS terminal

[bbtom]

Ignore the fact that it's a BSD shell, that it has some actual shell features (like tab completion, command recall etc.) and that it's POSIX compatible, and I guess it might kind of look like DOS.

CD brain\yours
DEL *.*
Are you sure? y
Could Not Find File

I've still got a bit of DOS in me it seems.

Re:MS-DOS terminal

[r3m0t]

The title of the terminal window was "MS-DOS 3.2".

Pickles!

[themusicgod1]

OMG Pickles!
TEE HEE! :DDDDD

Please make the hurting stop.

[stampsc]

If I see the word kittens one more time I'm going to . . .probably . . umm . . .wait until tomorrow to believe slashdot stories . . .never mind . . .

Re:Please make the hurting stop.

[VJ42]

kittens.

3 lines of code is bloatware!

[locnar42]

Search engine in 1 line of code:

print "Results not found";

Re:3 lines of code is bloatware!

[SmurfButcher Bob]

You mean,

print "KITTENS! [goatse.cx]"

Re:3 lines of code is bloatware!

[Kelson]

You may laugh, but I've actually written a search engine that way.

Admittedly, the site in question went into operation exactly one year ago...

OMG RAILS iS TEh SUK

[bitt3n]

I hate rails. Rails caused the demise of the Pony Express!1

Learn SQL First!

[LABob]

To get the full benifit of SQL on Rails, noobs should seriously consider learning a bit about SQL first!

4.1?

[Loconut1389]

Did anybody else notice version 4.1 (4/1 eg April 1), or was it just too obvious to write about?

Re:4.1?

[jamwt]

Did anybody else notice version 4.1 (4/1 eg April 1), or was it just too obvious to write about?

Check out the mtimes of the file in the tarball. :-)

Re:4.1?

[Loconut1389]

Didn't even notice there was a download. Funny!

APRIL FOOLS!

[Eideteker]

APRIL FOOLS!

This isn't exactly a joke...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've written and supported giant applications for years using SQL on Rails -- except we called it Oracle Web Server, Oracle Application Server and Oracle WebDB. Just like in the Rails screencast, you had one giant file that contained all your HTML, SQL, and dynamic code. To run the app you just imported the massive SQL file into the database, which looked like this:

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE hello_world IS
begin
      htp.print('<html>');
      htp.print('<head>');
      htp.print('<title>HTP.PRINT Example...</title>');
      htp.print('</head>');
      htp.print('<body>');
      htp.print('<h1>Hello, World!<h1>');
      htp.print('</body>');
      htp.print('</html>');
end;

This technology was sold as the premier way to write web apps for many years. Universities taught CS students to code with this, consultants in dark suits charged $150+ an hour to develop with it, and corporate clients paid tens of thousands of dollars per instance. I sincerely wish I was joking.

Re:This isn't exactly a joke...

[ja-ja-morkmorkmork]

ixney on the ashingbay! So it's a stupid thing to do, it pays the bills ~really well.

The screencast was funny

[HvitRavn]

The screencast is probably the funniest thing I've seen all day. It has lots of amusing little details that made me smile. This mirror seems pretty fast: http://screencast17.sqlonrails.org/video/screencas t2_lq.mov [sqlonrails.org]

TextMate

[Christopher Rogers]

In TextMate (used in most if not all Rails screencasts) they now have a choice in the languages dropdown "SQL (Rails)".

Re:It's getting old

[ejdmoo]

It's tradition!

Re:Screencast contains a virus?

[clm100]

Virus? I don't think so. The file is quicktime, it probably just doesn't work right in real player.

Plus, based on the actual video it was made on a mac. Everyone knows they can't get viruses ;) And shouldn't you be more worried about the privilege escalation in the download?