This is the first in my "rambling about ideas I don't have the time to create, but want to take credit for if someone makes it" series. My first entry is about an idea I am calling RubyMachine, a Ruby platform for novices to create and deploy web applications.

Rails is not easy. Yes, to people who do this stuff for a living, Rails is easy in the sense that everything before it sucked. But its not PHP easy, not "takes your nephew an hour to learn" easy. I want a Ruby web framework with a directory structure a child can understand:

index.haml
index.rb
about/
  me.erb
  me.rb
  _interests.markdown

Every file pairing consists of a markup file and an optional Ruby companion script. The companion script contains non-classed Ruby code with access to a query string hash and a database via DataMapper. Routes resemble the file paths (without extensions). Partials are underscored and cannot be accessed externally.

Locally, install the gem, run rubymachine in your project's home directory, and your development server starts. When you're ready to publish, visit rubymachine.com and deploy your project straight from a GitHub repository to your own dedicated server for a low monthly price (kaching).

I realize that I'm skipping a few details like layouts, plugins, and rendering partials. However, with these basic guidelines, I think this could be a cool way to get Ruby and web development out to a broader audience.