Ruby in the Sky with Rocks

Ruby on Rails Thoughts

[salo]

I've been going over a lot of research/tutorials with Ruby /(on Rails)/ recently (I've actually got an interview next week with a company seeking someone willing to learn and code Ruby... woohoo!), and I'm seeing it as a language of the uncertain future. I've come to release they (the creators) are just really good at talking up Ruby. Has anyone else found anything that exciting about it? Apparently it's outdoing PHP in Japan right now (According to the Ruby site). I remember coding PHP for the first time and thought for sure this is going far, but I just don't see it with Ruby. The scafolding is nice, but I feel that once I learn RoR it's going to be a feature that I never use.

As for scripts, hotscripts came back with less than 10 results on a search. And WW is not really too topical about it either.

Anyhow, Just seeing what other opinions are out there, and really interested in someone that has something good to say. (I suppose that if I get the position I will learn it no matter what)

-Rocks or Diamonds
-Salo

[Melech]

Sure, it's exciting. The thing about the scaffold is it lets you get things up and running very quickly, to test the concept or the flow of control, but you still need to polish later. This also means you don't get as bogged down in the mindless stuff like connecting to databases etc. And Rails has built-in intelligence that makes things just work.

As for scripts: Rails is a full-stack framework; you're not really going to be able to stick somebody else's script into your page in 10 seconds. There is plenty of example code on the Rails site, though.

[pete_m]

A couple of things I really like about RoR:

1 - My productivity with Rails is (at least) 3x that of PHP. Like Melech says, you don't need to worry about the mindless stuff.

2 - The templating system is *very* nice. Much better than the PHP systems I've tried (smarty, et al).

3 - It forces you into good habits like separation of code and HTML, and good OO programming. This means that apps are much, *much* easier to debug and maintain than the average PHP app.

RoR is much more than just the scaffolding - the overall framework is the key. I couldn't imagine building anything in PHP any more, except maybe single-page formmails.

[Melech]

Exactly: I would use PHP for a quick win (say getting a web page to display different content depending on the referring id) but for developing a full web app, Rails is definitely much quicker and easier.

[salo]

Thanks for the replies, just since the last post I've been working on a new application using RoR and it's going pretty smoothly. I'm coming to understand the lack of scripting available as it is a framework rather than a simple one 'pager'. I'm enjoying it so far!