How much Ruby knowledge is required to understand and use Capistrano?

[Haani Niyaz]

Hi there,

I hope I am in the correct forum to pose this question. I come from a PHP background and I've taken on a new role where Capistrano is in use.

I have no knowledge of Ruby and I was trying to figure out how much Ruby learning would be required to become fairly competent with Capistrano. I'm hoping somebody

could outline some 'must know' concepts or the best way to approach learning Ruby to ultimately become familiar with Capistrano. 

I know I could go away and learn some ruby and test my knowledge on Capistrano but I need to skill up soon (there is a deadline) and I feel like some expert advise will help me with my steep learning curve ahead.

Your suggestion and help is much appreciated.

[Lee Hambley]

I hope I am in the correct forum to pose this question. I come from a PHP background and I've taken on a new role where Capistrano is in use.

​If it's Capistrano 2.x you'd be wise to look at upgrading to Capistrano 3.x. Previous versions assumed a lot of Railsisms (lots of assumptions about database migrations, and directory layout, etc.​

 

I have no knowledge of Ruby and I was trying to figure out how much Ruby learning would be required to become fairly competent with Capistrano. I'm hoping somebody

​

Very little, for some examples check the https://github.com/capistrano/sshkit/blob/master/EXAMPLES.md and http://lee.hambley.name/2013/06/11/using-capistrano-v3-with-chef.html, if you can read that, the only important thing to note is the "subtle behaviour" section of the README https://github.com/capistrano/capistrano/blob/master/README.md#tasks

could outline some 'must know' concepts or the best way to approach learning Ruby to ultimately become familiar with Capistrano. 

​We invested a lot of time into http://www.capistranorb.com/ the key docs being http://capistranorb.com/documentation/getting-started/flow/ and http://capistranorb.com/documentation/advanced-features/ssh-kit/ 

If you run into shell weirdness (you shouldn't, really with PHP) http://capistranorb.com/documentation/faq/why-does-something-work-in-my-ssh-session-but-not-in-capistrano/ is an interesting read.

 

I know I could go away and learn some ruby and test my knowledge on Capistrano but I need to skill up soon (there is a deadline) and I feel like some expert advise will help me with my steep learning curve ahead.

​Most people deploy to a VM first, something like a Vagrant virtual box.​

Your suggestion and help is much appreciated.

​Hope that helps!​