A unique information portal, designed for web application developers who use Ruby on Rails, was launched this week to address this challenge. The website, Ruby on Rails information portal serves as a one-stop source for web developers who want to keep up with the trends and information related to Ruby on Rails and related technology.

The developers of BuildingWebApps.com, Michael Slater and Christopher Haupt, believe that Ruby on Rails is the best available platform for the majority of new web applications, but that it suffers from a lack of a central information resource. "Ruby on Rails makes it much easier to develop sophisticated web applications, once you've climbed the learning curve," commented Michael. "Our goal is to offer education and first-class information sources to support the Ruby on Rails ecosystem."

Slater and Haupt bring their years of technical experience to the selection of existing web articles and to creating information to fill in the gaps in existing materials. Slater led the well-regarded Microprocessor Report newsletter for more than a decade, and he brings that experience to the task of providing up-to-date, interesting and relevant tutorials, news and analysis.

In addition to covering the Ruby on Rails platform itself, BuildingWebApps.com covers the associated technologies that are required for building web applications: Ruby on Rails server setup and administration, user interface design and coding, Ruby on Rails software development practices, and Ruby on Rails business issues. "Even when you use a highly capable framework like Rails, you need to be able to work effectively with a wide range of technologies to build and deploy a successful web application," said Christopher.

The site itself is built using Ruby on Rails, and the company plans to use the application it has built for this site to create other community knowledge websites in the future. Slater and Haupt have also produced a series of podcasts, Learning Rails, and they are presenting a RailsQuickStart seminar in San Francisco on February 20-21.