I'm attempting to move this blog from WordPress to Rails. Why? Because I'm learning Rails!

Step one in the transition is to build a Rails app that can make use of an existing WordPress database. The following seems to work...

First, create a Rails app (using MySQL for the database), then import the WordPress database into the Rails app database:

cd /path/to/folder/with/wordpress/mysql/file/in/
mysql -u root
use my_app_development;
source wp_database_exported_from_mysql.sql
quit

Next, update the schema in the app

rake db:schema:dump

Next (with a bit of help from schema_to_scaffold), generate the scaffold to link the app to the database. These commands, followed by lines to be added to the corresponding model files, seem to do the trick, for the default WordPress database structure:

rails generate scaffold CommentMeta meta_id:integer comment_id:integer meta_key:string meta_value:text --skip-migration
  self.primary_key = 'meta_id'
  set_table_name 'wp_commentmeta'

rails generate scaffold Comment comment_ID:integer comment_post_ID:integer comment_author:text comment_author_email:string comment_author_url:string comment_author_IP:string comment_date:datetime comment_date_gmt:datetime comment_content:text comment_karma:integer comment_approved:string comment_agent:string comment_type:string comment_parent:integer user_id:integer comment_subscribe:string --skip-migration
  self.primary_key = 'comment_ID'
  set_table_name 'wp_comments'

rails generate scaffold Link link_id:integer link_url:string link_name:string link_image:string link_target:string link_category:integer link_description:string link_visible:string link_owner:integer link_rating:integer link_updated:datetime link_rel:string link_notes:text link_rss:string --skip-migration
  self.primary_key = 'link_id'
  set_table_name 'wp_links'

rails generate scaffold Option option_id:integer option_name:string option_value:text autoload:string --skip-migration
  self.primary_key = 'option_id'
  set_table_name 'wp_options'

rails generate scaffold PostMeta meta_id:integer post_id:integer meta_key:string meta_value:text --skip-migration
  self.primary_key = 'meta_id'
  set_table_name 'wp_postmeta'

rails generate scaffold Post ID:integer post_author:integer post_date:datetime post_date_gmt:datetime post_content:text post_title:text post_category:integer post_excerpt:text post_status:string comment_status:string ping_status:string post_password:string post_name:string to_ping:text pinged:text post_modified:datetime post_modified_gmt:datetime post_content_filtered:text post_parent:integer guid:string menu_order:integer post_type:string post_mime_type:string comment_count:integer --skip-migration
  self.primary_key = 'ID'
  set_table_name 'wp_posts'

rails generate scaffold TermRelationship object_id:integer term_taxonomy_id:integer term_order:integer --skip-migration
  set_table_name 'wp_term_relationships'

rails generate scaffold TermTaxonomy term_taxonomy_id:integer term_id:integer taxonomy:string description:text parent:integer count:integer --skip-migration
  self.primary_key = 'term_taxonomy_id'
  set_table_name 'wp_term_taxonomy'

rails generate scaffold Term term_id:integer name:string slug:string term_group:integer --skip-migration
  self.primary_key = 'term_id'
  set_table_name 'wp_terms'

rails generate scaffold UserMeta umeta_id:integer user_id:integer meta_key:string meta_value:text --skip-migration
  self.primary_key = 'umeta_id'
  set_table_name 'wp_usermeta'

rails generate scaffold User ID:integer user_login:string user_pass:string user_nicename:string user_email:string user_url:string user_registered:datetime user_activation_key:string user_status:integer display_name:string --skip-migration
  self.primary_key = 'ID'
  set_table_name 'wp_users'

Then, for some instant gratification, make a controller for the blog:

rails generate controller blog index

Set this as the root page, by adding to config/routes.rb:

root :to => 'blog#index', :as => 'blog'

In the Blog model, put:

scope :published_posts, where(:post_status => 'publish', :post_type => 'post').order('post_date DESC')

In BlogController, put:

def index
  @posts = Post.published_posts
end

And in the view for the blog index, put:

<% @posts.each do |post| %>
  <div class="entry">
    <h2><%= post.post_title %></h2>
    <p><%= post.post_date.strftime('%d %h %Y') %></p>
    <p><%= sanitize(post.post_content) %></p>
  </div>
<% end %>

Lots more work to do, but it's a start!