Question

I understand Rails is a web framework built on Ruby. Ruby is a language separate from Rails which Rails uses. I’m not getting if it is best to use both separately or it is best to use Ruby on Rails.

Or is Ruby on Rails a completely different framework just using Ruby code and Rails code? Could you just install both Ruby and Rails and set them both up together?
If the above is true then what is Ruby on Rails and the benefits of using it in comparison to setting up Ruby and Rails as one?

Answer 1

The name “Ruby on Rails” is sometimes shortened as “Rails”, or “RoR”, which is the same – a web development framework.

You can, of course, use Ruby without Rails, as you can use any other programming language, to build different programs, not only web applications.

You cannot use Rails without using Ruby, because as you wrote yourself, Rails is a web framework built in Ruby. When you build web applications in Rails, you write your code in the Ruby language (there are some other rewrites of Rails, like GRails, which uses Groovy, but this is a different thing).

If you follow the installation guide on the Get Started page, you will see that you first install Ruby for your platform, then install RubyGems (which is a package manager for installing additional Ruby libraries), and then use RubyGems gem install rails command to install Rails with all its dependencies. So you might say that Rails is a library for Ruby.

This installation of Rails then provides a set of scripts, including the rails command, which help you build your web application according to the set of conventions adopted by Rails.