[deathspin]

I'd put the marketing site at whatever.com and the app and app.whatever.com.

You then decide what types of information needs to pass between the two systems. Instead of porting your entire frontend you simple build a few API calls and pull those in with WordPress.

[DanHulton]

Absolutely needs to be rated higher. I've done this for a few sites and it works wonderfully, not to mention having an API exposed like this gives you opportunities for integration with other people's services, if you choose to go that way.

[raheemm]

The API exposure is a good benefit

[mikeschinkel]

As someone who is a full-time WordPress platform architect, I completely agree with @deathspin here.

[roderick3427]

Do you know of any good online resources that could be used to learn how to use wordpress to pull api calls from a rails app?

[deathspin]

You'd want to do it as a WordPress plugin, this way you're not fucking around with any core files and it should be upgrade proof (for the most part). Start Here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Writing_a_Plugin

[krapp]

One small thing to take note of though with private plugins is to make sure the name of the plugin is unique enough that it won't collide with another one in the repository. A minor issue though.

[chatmasta]

Don't even bother. You can find hundreds of people on elance to do it for you for a couple hundred bucks.

[greendata]

I have found this to be the most helpful way of setting things up

[dylanhassinger]

this.