[Ruby] RoR Newbie seeks advice and a good example app to study

[Joe Van Dyk]

On 9/6/06, Joe Shapiro <joeshapiro at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Folks
> I'm new to RoR but would like to use it to build a data-centric site
> for the Seattle filmmaking community. I have a pretty good idea of
> what I'd like the site to do, and it includes typical things like
> having users that own projects, projects that contain scripts,
> positions (e.g. Director, Producer, Screenwriter, etc), and the
> ability to see what's new, what's hot, what positions are available,
> etc.
>
> So a bunch of fairly-standard functionality for a data-driven community site.
>
> As I said, I'm a newbie to Rails but not to programming. Though I've
> been out of it for about 7 years now, I programmed extensively in C,
> C++, and Lisp. I'm also a newbie at CSS and I see that HTML formatting
> is old hat and CSS is now "it".
>
> I've read most of the Agile book and the Recipes book but I feel I
> still need a better grounding in what a "real" app looks like. Any
> good pointers? I've just downloaded Beast - a new Rails blogger - and
> it looks pretty cool. But I'm still not sure if it represents sound
> Rails app structure.
>
> Any help - including anyone who'd actually want to help me code this
> thing - is much appreciated!

Mephisto is pretty well written, last time I looked at it.  Is the
Ruby user group site open sourced?