Release candidate of Rails 2.3.0 posted

Although the development for version 2.3.0 of the open source Web framework Ruby on Rails is almost completed, the development team has posted a release candidate for 2.3.0. The aim of the new release candidate is to test the new features, before the official release is made available, even if it means they have to have a "slightly longer release candidate phase to account for that."

Highlighted features in the new release include new skeleton application generation using templates. This allows developers to specify what plugins and gems they use in projects and have them automatically incorporate when Rails creates an application skeleton. Nested forms have been added, to make dealing with complex forms easier and the developers have renewed support for Rails Engines, Rails applications which can be embedded within other applications, with some new features introduced, such as automatic loading and reloading and better load path handling.

Rails 2.3.0 now uses rack throughout, bringing to an end Rails' CGI past, though CGI is still supported through a proxy interface. Rack provides a minimal interface for webservers to implement to support Ruby and Ruby frameworks. Rack is also used with the Rails Metal project, which is incorporated into Rails 2.3.0. Metal helps with applications that need to run very fast and handle hundreds of activities in a very short time, by providing a lightweight route to application code, avoiding Rails routing, allowing developers to "hit the metal".

A full list of the changes to Rails 2.3.0 is available in the release notes.

(crve)