Ruby on Rails is a popular and powerful open source web framework for rapidly creating high-quality web applications to help you keep up with the speed of the Web. Rails is thriving on Mac OS X, and Leopard comes pre-installed with Ruby, Rails, Mongrel, Capistrano, Subversion, and other tools that help to streamline the development and deployment of Rails applications. In addition, the Organizer feature of XCode 3.0 keeps your development workflow efficient. This article gives you a full tour of Ruby on Rails 2.0 on Leopard—starting with building a web application using the latest Rails features with Xcode 3.0, and finishing with deploying the application to a production server running Leopard Server. Along the way we'll explore unique features and benefits that Leopard brings to the party. In the end you'll be better equipped to consider the advantages of powering your web application with Rails on Leopard. This is the first in a series of three articles: This article on Development, where you learn to build a basic RESTful Rails application using Xcode 3.0; Customization, where we discuss working with views and web forms, adding AJAX support, and supporting an iPhone interface; Deployment, where we set up version control, write a Capistrano recipe, and deploy on Leopard Server. Together they will give you a great start in working with Rails on MacOSX Leopard