README

== Camping, a Microframework

Camping is a web framework which consistently stays at less than 3kb 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 < R '/'
      def get
        @posts = Post.find :all
        render :index
      end
    end
  end

  module Blog::Views
    def layout
      html do
        body do
          self << yield
        end
      end
    end

    def index
      for post in @posts
        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:

* <tt>gem install camping</tt>

Or for the bleeding edge:

* <tt>gem install camping --source http://gems.judofyr.net</tt>

This will download everything you need and get you all set up. If you're installing camping manually, you'll need to make sure you have 'rack' installed as well, the interface Camping uses to talk to your web server. You'll also need 'markaby' for the views, and 'activerecord' if you're going to be using databases.

== Learning

* Start by reading the documentation in {the Camping module}[link:classes/Camping.html]
  - it should get you started pretty quick.
* {The wiki}[http://wiki.github.com/why/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!
* Still wondering?  Subscribe to {the mailing list}[http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/camping-list].
  This is where it's all happening!  Don't worry, though, the volume is just
  as micro as Camping itself.  
  
== Authors

Camping was originally started 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'll become a contributor too.  Remember: writing the
code is just half the job, without some serious thinking from you we won't get
any further.