README

= Camping, a Microframework

Camping is a web framework which consistently stays at less than 4kB of code.
You can probably view the complete source code on a single page. But, you
know, it's so small that, if you think about it, what can it really do?

The idea here is to store a complete fledgling web application in a single
file like many small CGIs. But to organize it as a Model-View-Controller
application like Rails does. You can then easily move it to Rails once you've
got it going.

== A Camping Skeleton

A skeletal Camping blog could look like this:

  require 'camping'
  
  Camping.goes :Blog

  module Blog::Models
    class Post < Base; belongs_to :user; end
    class Comment < Base; belongs_to :user; end
    class User < Base; end
  end

  module Blog::Controllers
    class Index
      def get
        @posts = Post.find :all
        render :index
      end
    end
  end

  module Blog::Views
    def layout
      html do
        head { title "My Blog" }
        body do
          h1 "My Blog"
          self << yield
        end
      end
    end

    def index
      @posts.each do |post|
        h1 post.title
      end
    end
  end
  
== Installation

Interested yet?  Luckily it's quite easy to install Camping.  We'll be using
a tool called RubyGems, so if you don't have that installed yet, go grab it!
Once that's sorted out, open up a Terminal or Command Line and enter:

    gem install camping

Even better, install the Camping Omnibus, a full package of recommended libs:

    gem install camping-omnibus --source http://gems.judofyr.net

If not, you should be aware of that Camping itself only depends on
Rack[http://rack.rubyforge.org], and if you're going to use the views you also
need to install +markaby+, and if you're going to use the database you need
+activerecord+ as well.

    gem install markaby
    gem install activerecord
 
== Learning

First of all, you should read {the first chapters}[link:book/01_introduction.html]
of The Camping Book. It should hopefully get you started pretty quick. While
you're doing that, you should be aware of the _reference_ which contains
documentation for all the different parts of Camping.

{The wiki}[http://wiki.github.com/camping/camping] is the place for all tiny,
useful tricks that we've collected over the years.  Don't be afraid to share
your own discoveries; the more, the better!

And if there's anything you're wondering about, don't be shy, but rather 
subscribe to {the mailing list}[http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/camping-list]
and ask there.  We also have an IRC channel over at Freenode, so if you feel
like chatting with us, you should join {#camping @ irc.freenode.net}[http://java.freenode.net/?channel=camping].

== Authors

Camping was originally crafted by {why the lucky stiff}[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_lucky_stiff],
but is now maintained by the _community_.  This simply means that if we like your
patch, it will be applied.  Everything is managed through {the mailing list}[http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/camping-list],
so just subscribe and you can instantly take a part in shaping Camping.