Using the three free, open-source and original system components (PHP, MySQL, and phpMyAdmin) to develop, test, and deploy Web applications locally is almost the only best option available at the moment. Thereinto, Apache Web server and PHP hypertext preprocessor are preinstalled on Mac. But they are not enabled by default, and the pre-installed version of PHP lacks many utility features. The MySQL needs to be installed and configured separately. Unless you are able to expertly use command lines in Terminal, installing the one-stop solution MAMP (PRO) is much simpler and more efficient.

Ruby is a simple and fast object-oriented programming scripting language that is obviously younger than other similar programming languages (such like Perl or Python). It was written by Yukihiro Matsumoto from Japan (started in 1993 and finished in 1995). The inspiration and characteristics of Ruby are mainly from Perl, Squeak/Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada and Lisp programming languages.