title: Guide to plan a Rails application. From Idea to Prototype?
body: <h1>The Glue..</h1>
  
  <p>Last semester I was taught <strong>Ruby</strong> in my programming classes, some about <em>Entity Relationship Diagrams</em>, and some <em>Dataflow</em>.
  I have been going into <strong>Ruby on Rails</strong> lately and I want to use some of my accumulated novice knowledge to develop a site based on a simple idea.
  However, I can't seem to find the glue between <em>Ruby on Rails</em> and my knowledge from last semester. There are certain specific areas where I'm stuck and keep getting confused:</p>
  
  <p>How can I translate my entities from my diagrams to Rails thinking?
  What are the naming conventions or even the translation - is an entity a <em>Controller</em>? Or a <em>Model</em>? </p>
  
  <p>Let's imagine that I have the following wish:</p>
  
  <p>The web app is an online list, displaying cars which have been stolen from users of the site. A <em>User</em> (entity?) should be able to register with user information (<em>attributes</em>?), fill-out a form that will create a CarPost(Entity?) with a unique id and reg. number privately viewable in his own post overview, CarPostView (<em>View</em>?). </p>
  
  <p>If and when his/hers car gets stolen! (knock on wood), the <em>User</em> should be able to <em>Activate</em> (<em>action</em>?) that <em>CarPost</em> to be displayed as stolen at the front page of the website, searchable and readable to all visitors. If the car is returned to the <em>User</em>, the <em>User</em> should be able to deactivate the <em>CarPost</em> and make it invisible again for others, but keep it in his post overview page.</p>
  
  <p>In my head, the:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>User, needs a model?
  <ul>
  <li>User has attributes, and they are accessed through the View files?</li>
  </ul></li>
  <li>CarPost, needs a model?
  <ul>
  <li>CarPost has attributes, and they are accessed through the View files?</li>
  </ul></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Then I need to create some 'actions?' somewhere that can activate/deactivate the <em>CarPosts</em>, and establish some relations between them. I think that <em>relations</em> is known as <em>associations</em> in Rails, correct me - please - if I'm wrong? And those should be in my <em>Models</em>?</p>
  
  <p>Any guidance appreciated.</p>