1 Rails Rocks!

Im a designer/developer and have been working with ruby on rails for the past 2.5 years, its a wonderful platform to work off. I love the way the framework is organized, it keeps the code clean. Im getting better at writing actual ruby code, but I still have a long way to go. When I compared the rails framework to php frameworks such as zend, cakephp, and symfony, it seemed as though they were all just trying to copy rails. Which is in itself flattering! Go Rails!

posted at 01:08 pm on April 22, 2008 by Jake Rutter

2 Thank you

Hey Dan, thanks, especially for the PHP comparison. I admit I know very little about programming so it’s nice to know PHP isn’t “the debil” as lots of Ruby users might think. ;)

Also, thanks for clarifying the fact that Rails is a code framework and not a super pixie dust maker. Spending too much time talking to RoR guys and I start to believe it I can do magical things. It’s like me telling a client “CSS is super easy, anyone can do it!” Even CSS is still code.

You’ve made me appreciate developers so much more today, as though it were possible. ;) The trouble with making things look easy is accidentally implying that anyone could do your job and that is just not so.

posted at 01:36 pm on April 22, 2008 by Natalie Jost

3 google app engine

after looking thru the previews of google app engine it looks like theyre going to be doing the MVC thing. i couldnt help but think that it was a rails killer after watching it. anyone else?

posted at 02:05 pm on April 22, 2008 by Fred Epner

4 Nice screenshot arrows

Hey Dan,

Great article. What are you using to make those nice red arrows on your screenshots? I have seen it elsewhere and its a really nice technique.

Cheers,
Alastair

posted at 03:01 pm on April 22, 2008 by Alastair Brunton

5 Untitled

You compared Rails to PHP? Shouldn’t that be a Ruby and PHP comparison?

Why not mention fuller and more competent frameworks such as Symfony etc? Symfony

posted at 03:15 pm on April 22, 2008 by Eugene Cook

6 Untitled

You compared Rails to PHP? Shouldn’t that be a Ruby and PHP comparison?

Eugene, he explained that here:

“Technically speaking, we shouldn’t compare PHP, a programming language, to Rails, a web application framework. Instead, we should compare PHP to the Ruby programming language upon which Rails was built.”

posted at 03:38 pm on April 22, 2008 by Ryan Irelan

7 Untitled

I think each language are good for different projects…

posted at 04:48 pm on April 22, 2008 by Fonts K

8 Very Good Overview, but...

This article is very good overview of the Rails framework, and was very useful to me.
I am web develpoer and a not very experienced Java programmer, and I’m just beginning with Rails. The only one thing that, for me, you should say stronger, is that learning the Object Oriented programming principles is essential to make a decent use of Rails, and it can be very difficult for smart people too, and anyway it takes a lot of time.
So I think that if you are a designer that can write some php or javascript but knows nothing about OO programming, or you plain to become a software developer (and invest about one year to learn it) or much better you forget Ruby and Rails.

posted at 05:37 pm on April 22, 2008 by Alessandro Meiattini

9 Rails is Not Yet Vulnerable

after looking thru the previews of google app engine it looks like theyre going to be doing the MVC thing. i couldnt help but think that it was a rails killer after watching it. anyone else?

Not really, the google app engine certainly has a huge advantage on Rails in the scalability department, but in other areas it won’t be able to match Rails’ flexibility. At least not in the short term.

If the google app engine does emerge as a market leader in web application development it will not be at the expense of Rails, but rather it will mark a paradigm shift and the decline of open source and self-hosted web applications. That would be a dangerous development for the open nature of the web in general.

However as far as Rails is concerned, it’s not particularly vulnerable for the time being. Despite the brilliant marketing by David Heinemeier Hansson resulting in a widespread assumption that Rails is little more than a flavor-of-the-month fad, Rails’ continued success has been a result of well-conceived architecture embodying established best practices. There’s nothing really new about Rails… it’s just pulling the best ideas from the last 10 years of web development and rolling them up in an agile package that tends to give you more bang for your buck than anything that came before. Of course it can’t hold a candle to PHP for one-off dynamic additions to static pages, or to J2EE for interfacing with sprawling enterprise backends, but there’s a sizable sweet spot.

Eventually best practices will evolve—due in no small part to the influence of modern frameworks such as Rails, Django and Seaside—and Rails will be superceded by something newer and less ossified. However even Google is not capable of something that will blow Rails out of the water yet.

posted at 10:21 pm on April 22, 2008 by Gabe da Silveira

10 Very Good Atricle, Expecting CSS Article with Rail

Hello,

This is one of the best introduction article i have read. It really promotes rails and makes it clear.

A List Apart is very famous for CSS also. I would like to see few articles on mixing Great CSS styles with rails.

Tabs, Sliding Doors, CSS Comments. Liquid and 3 column templates are few of articles which can be shown with rails.

Rails can become more powerful with good CSS.

Thanks

SoftMind

posted at 05:05 am on April 23, 2008 by SoftMind Technology

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