Hi! Jamey Cribbs, here. First time blogger. I’m the developer of KirbyBase, a small, pure-Ruby, database management system.

Recently, Assaph Mehr, a fellow Ruby developer, released version 0.1.0 of Ackbar, an ActiveRecord adapter for KirbyBase. Now, Assaph wrote Ackbar primarily so he can use it in Pimki, which he also developed.

Although I’m pretty experienced with Ruby, I am a Rails newbie. I recently bought Agile Development With Rails and had made it through Chapter 6, following along and building the Depot application using MySQL. Then, work got in the way and several weeks passed without being able to continue reading the book.

Then, a couple of days ago, as I started to play with Ackbar, I had a thought: Why not try to build the Depot application in the Rails book using Ackbar/KirbyBase as the back-end instead of MySQL?

This exercise could serve several purposes:

1. Motivate me to learn Rails.
2. Identify bugs-to-be-fixed/changes-necessary for Ackbar/KirbyBase to function as a useful Rails back-end.
3. Identify potential areas where an Ackbar/KirbyBase back-end would be an attractive alternative for developers (i.e. ease of installation, small-footprint, etc.).
4. Document configuration settings, workarounds, pitfalls encountered when using Ackbar/KirbyBase as a Rails back-end (i.e. limited used of SQL).

After convincing myself that this would be a good idea, I also decided that blogging the whole process also made sense. Rather than try to take notes and then post an email on Ruby-Talk, putting this exercise on a blog would make it more accessible and easier for others to comment on it.

My plan is to create a new blog entry for each chapter I finish in the Rails book. So far, I have completed Chapter 6 (the first chapter where you actually start to code the Depot application) using Ackbar and, other than a couple of small fixes, it was smooth sailing. This blog should be considered part tutorial, part travelogue, and part mystery story, because I don’t know how it’s going to end. Will I be able to finish the Depot application using Ackbar or will I run into a show-stoper, something that KirbyBase just can’t handle? It’s going to be fun finding out!

So, keep your eye on this space. I hope to post a new entry by the end of the weekend detailing my journey through Chapter 6 of the Rails book.