Rails from the inside

Question

All this guildes and books are aimed at developing website, but what if I want to understand how Rails work? Is there any articles about how does my app starts, how does ActionView works with my layouts and so on?

Thank you.

Answer 1

The Rails guides explain things like that: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/

But in order for you to really understand how Rails is working - than you need to build an application. That's why most of the tutorials on Rails start with making a project.

This is a free book that will walk you through just about everything you need to know about Rails to get started: http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial-book

In my humble opinion, building an actual application is a great way to learn how all the pieces work together.

EDIT:

Based on your response below, it seems like you are looking for a deep understanding of exactly how Rails works and not just a working knowledge. The only way you can really do this is by digging through the source code - like Archit suggested: https://github.com/rails/rails

You can however get a more advanced understanding of how things work by using this book: http://www.amazon.com/Rails-AntiPatterns-Refactoring-Addison-Wesley-Professional/dp/0321604814. It does a good job of explaining a lot of the "magic" that Rails is known for.

... but you will never know exactly how things work unless you peruse the source.

Answer 2

The only site about rails internals I have found in my bookmarks is http://railsguts.com/, and it is about Rails 2.3. There is also an excellent screencast about the Rails 3 routing: http://railscasts.com/episodes/231-routing-walkthrough

There is also this question which can give you additional hints: How does ruby on rails work?

Answer 3

Don't believe so. Probably because you can always just go read the code @ github (https://github.com/rails/rails)