You use grails too? I'd like to have some opinions about grails and RoR. I use both, but lately I prefer grails to develop my applications. With RoR you have to think about tables, create foreign key, and so on, with you have to create your domain classes and that's all.
Yes, I do use Grails as well, and at this precise moment I am working on a project that required me to use it.
Before jumping into Rails as my primary development framework, I used to use mainly Grails, and J2EE before that. Groovy is so much like Java that I just picked it quickly. I also learned Ruby quickly as it is pretty similar in syntax to Python, which I have and still use it quite a lot for System Administration.
I think both frameworks are pretty similar and pretty good, and Grails has the advantage of allowing you to make use of existing Java frameworks and tons of libraries available. Specially when you need a reporting solution or support for a certain RDBMS, which does not happen with Active Record. I haven't really tried DataMapper or another ORM framework.
I often decide on what framework to use based on the target platform, RDBMS and reporting solution. For instance, if the target platform is Windows, there is no doubt that I will use Grails, since Rails is not very Windows friendly. If I don't need any special RDBMS, advanced reporting capabilities, or Windows, then I go for Rails. In fact I only develop with Grails on the Windows platform. Other than that, I use Rails.
In the beginning I used Rails only for websites, but now we are using it even for developing financial and accounting software.
Now with regards to thinking in tables terms, I prefer it over letting a framework do everything for me. Contrary to what many people can say, Object-Oriented programming and the Relational model are compatible to a certain extent. There are certain OO concepts that are hard to implement in a Relational model. Take inheritance for instance. How many approaches do you have for that? They all have their pros and cons, but none is a perfect match for the real concept. So, to a certain degree you need to think in terms of tables or use an ORDBMS, which is easier to map.
The relational model is here to stay for a very long time.
All the best,
Fidel.
I often decide on what framework to use based on the target platform, RDBMS and reporting solution. For instance, if the target platform is Windows, there is no doubt that I will use Grails, since Rails is not very Windows friendly. If I don't need any special RDBMS, advanced reporting capabilities, or Windows, then I go for Rails. In fact I only develop with Grails on the Windows platform. Other than that, I use Rails.
So if rails works as well as grails in Windows your final choice can be rails?
In the beginning I used Rails only for websites, but now we are using it even for developing financial and accounting software.
I develop only web applications for now, I'm using both grails and rails with jruby because I prefer to deploy under a servlet container like tomcat. I love both, I cannot decide which one prefer.
So if rails works as well as grails in Windows your final choice can be rails?
Rails is always my first choice when I begin a new project. I only resort to Grails when I face situations that require me to use it. Such as the ones I have described in my previous post. As for Windows, I only use it if it is one of the client's requirements. Otherwise, a use a Unix-based system.
I develop only web applications for now, I'm using both grails and rails with jruby because I prefer to deploy under a servlet container like tomcat. I love both, I cannot decide which one prefer.
I also don't have a favourite framework, but I do favour Ruby over Groovy, and that is what leads me to go for Rails. I think that either framework can do the job, and in the end it comes down to language preference, at least for me.
Regards,
Fidel.
I am using Jruby with Rails. Heard that jruby is much faster than ruby with rails. But I dont know how fast its going...I didn't experience any difference.
But I prefer going with Ruby on Rails where deployment is much easier and we can model our own linking and stuff other than working with glassfish with war files.
When I run on development with Webrick its fine but when I deploy it on glassfish it shows me a lot of errors and as it is my first app with jruby and rails on glassfish, it took me a lot of time to figure out what exact prblm is which I didnt not experience on my 1st app with ruby on rails
Make sure you're using the latest Glassfish gem, 1.0.3. The latest release fixes a number of issues that have cropped up over the year since the previous release.
/Nick
I'm using tomcat for a long time in a linux debian xen virtual machine, with grails applications and jruby on rails applications without any problem.
Another option if you are using jruby on rails is the trinidad gem - it leverages the tomcat engine without the trouble of creating a war file.
But creating a war file isn't a trouble absolutely.