Technology stack

The backbone:

• Ruby (programming language)
• Rails (web framework, using an MVC architecture)
• PostgreSQL (database)
• Apache with mod_rails aka Phusion Passenger (web server)
• Heroku (trialling this as of Jan 2013, instead of apache/mod_rails)

On top of that we use the following toolkits, Ruby gems etc:

• Twitter Bootstrap (responsive CSS/javascript framework)
• HAML (succinct markup for views, as an alternative to Rails' default ERB)
• Devise (user signup/login/session management)
• FriendlyID (making friendlier URLs)
• Bluecloth (Markdown formatting)
• Comfortable Mexican Sofa (CMS)

Developer infrastructure:

• Git (distributed version control)
• Github (hosts our code repositories)
• RSpec (for unit testing)
• Spork (optional - speed up testing)
• Watchr (optional - run tests whenever code files change)
• Bundler (keep version numbers of gems in sync between coders)
• RVM (easily use a specific version of Ruby and a specific bundle of gems)
• Rake (Ruby replacement for Make)
• Capistrano (deployment to the production and dev servers)
• Cape (turn Rake tasks into Capistrano tasks)
• FactoryGirl (create reusable data for RSpec tests)