Ruby on Rails: what is the difference between Ruby and Rails?

As a newcomer to web development I really didn’t understand that Ruby on Rails was referring to 2 different things. After working with it for a while and getting into the how’s and why’s as I like to do, I came to understand and appreciate those differences.

First let me start of with a quick definition of Ruby. Ruby is an object-oriented, interpreted programming language. The interpreted part means that Ruby is not a compiled language; it is read line by line. The object-oriented part refers to a programming paradigm that uses objects to design applications.

Now let’s get into Rails. Rails is a framework that is written in Ruby. A framework allows programmers to access a set of methods, libraries and support applications which extend the language they are using. Rails imparts a lot of critical and time saving functionality to your Ruby application. Rails follows a Model View Controller (MVC) architecture and a Convention of Configuration concept. One of the other key features that Rails has is Active Record, which controls the object-relational mapping, allowing for easy database integration.

In summary, Ruby is a programming language, while Rails is the foundation that you build your Ruby application on. Ruby on Rails is a powerful team that allows for rapid database driven, web application development.