== Welcome to SoundClone

SoundClone is a webservice created in Ruby on Rails which provides listening and uploading music and pictures to their profile for registered users. The user has the option to build up a social network with following other musicians or artists he likes. In the same time he can upload his own works to the page and offer it for other users to listen/watch and rate his work. Through this features users will build a growing community of artists and consumers to share their work and get instant feedback through rating and comments. If you are not yet a part of the network you will be able to browse artists and toplists(best rated artists and songs) to find new inspiration. As a registered user you can invite new people through an automated email service which allows you in 1 click to invite people to the network. Earlier uploaded songs can be combined to whole albums, which are essential for the rating features and additionally give more comfort when listening to several titles of an artist. For rating other peoples work you can either write comments or give a rating (e.g. between 0 and 10).

== What is Rails ? Rails is a web-application framework that includes everything needed to create database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Control pattern.

This pattern splits the view (also called the presentation) into "dumb" templates that are primarily responsible for inserting pre-built data in between HTML tags. The model contains the "smart" domain objects (such as Account, Product, Person, Post) that holds all the business logic and knows how to persist themselves to a database. The controller handles the incoming requests (such as Save New Account, Update Product, Show Post) by manipulating the model and directing data to the view.

In Rails, the model is handled by what's called an object-relational mapping layer entitled Active Record. This layer allows you to present the data from database rows as objects and embellish these data objects with business logic methods. You can read more about Active Record in link:files/vendor/rails/activerecord/README.html.

The controller and view are handled by the Action Pack, which handles both layers by its two parts: Action View and Action Controller. These two layers are bundled in a single package due to their heavy interdependence. This is unlike the relationship between the Active Record and Action Pack that is much more separate. Each of these packages can be used independently outside of Rails. You can read more about Action Pack in link:files/vendor/rails/actionpack/README.html