New to web app development -- ROR pros and cons

rubyonrails-talk
1

I am brand new to web application development, and I'm looking for a good web framework to learn in order to build a new web application (sort of a personal task/project management system). I've got some experience with website building, HTML, CSS, and a little javascript. I don't have any experience with server-side coding, but I do have general programming experience (i.e., not web/internet related) as well as some experience with relational databases and SQL.

Since I'm new to web development, I'm looking for a framework (and language) that will be easy to set up, learn, and find support for. Also, rather than creating everything from scratch, I'm hoping to rely as much as possible on existing libraries, plug-ins, applications, examples, etc. So, a framework that's compatible with as large a universe as possible of existing solutions would be ideal. I'm also planning to link to various web service API's (e.g., Google Calendar).

(Note, I'll be developing on a Windows 7 machine.)

I've been considering Ruby on Rails but also checking out some Python frameworks (Django, web2py, and TurboGears) as well as ASP.NET (WebForms and MVC). What are some of the pros and cons of going with ROR vs. some of these other options (particularly interested in hearing from people who have experience using the other options)?

web2py in particular seems very interesting because it sounds like it incorporates many ideas from ROR but may be easier to set up, learn, develop with, and deploy. Does anyone have any experience with both ROR and web2py?

Finally, since I'm new to Rails, would it make sense to just start with the new Rails 3.0? If so, how does that impact the above comparisons?

Thanks a lot.

2

There is one video in google videos section on a conference on ROR and pjango.

Search Ruby on Rails conference in google videos. Both the creators of the ROR and pjango are in the conference both explain what they are upto.

3

Welcome to the weird and wacky world of web application development.

Anthony wrote:

Since I'm new to web development, I'm looking for a framework (and language) that will be easy to set up, learn, and find support for. Also, rather than creating everything from scratch, I'm hoping to rely as much as possible on existing libraries, plug-ins, applications, examples, etc. So, a framework that's compatible with as large a universe as possible of existing solutions would be ideal. I'm also planning to link to various web service API's (e.g., Google Calendar).

I would be careful with the thought that the largest universe of existing solutions is the best. Almost by definition the framework with the largest number of solutions is the one that's been around for a long time. That's good in terms of stability, but not so good in terms of innovation.

Quality of existing solutions trump quantity. Of course this also stipulates the existence of said solution.

That being said RoR has a very rich set of gems and plugins to handle just about anything you can imagine. Granted, it may not be as "large" a collection as other frameworks that have been around longer.

(Note, I'll be developing on a Windows 7 machine.)

Sorry to hear that. It boggles my mind why developers torture themselves in such ways. :slight_smile:

Get you a good UNIX based system. Something with a halfway sane command line, whether that be Ubuntu, some other Linux flavor-of-the-week, or Mac OS X. In the long run I think you'll benefit greatly when it comes time to deploy your web application, regardless of what framework you choose. ASP.NET being the obvious exception, but there's no hope for you anyway if that's the option you choose. :wink:

I've been considering Ruby on Rails but also checking out some Python frameworks (Django, web2py, and TurboGears) as well as ASP.NET (WebForms and MVC). What are some of the pros and cons of going with ROR vs. some of these other options (particularly interested in hearing from people who have experience using the other options)?

I'd rather be building web applications with RoR than anything else I've tried. I spend my days developing web applications with various Java frameworks. I often wondered why web development was such misery, until I discovered RoR. RoR reminded me that software development can be fun and productive. It reminded my why I got into software development in first place.

web2py in particular seems very interesting because it sounds like it incorporates many ideas from ROR but may be easier to set up, learn, develop with, and deploy. Does anyone have any experience with both ROR and web2py?

Why use something that "incorporates many ideas from ROR" when you can use the framework that inspired them?

Finally, since I'm new to Rails, would it make sense to just start with the new Rails 3.0? If so, how does that impact the above comparisons?

Not necessarily. Most of the "Getting Started" tutorial material is going to be targeted at the current stable version of Rails. I would recommend getting used the current release and then look into the changes in Rails 3.0 once you have a decent grasp of the framework. There's nothing that's going to change so drastically that you'll have to relearn everything. One does not learn to fly airplanes by becoming a test pilot for experimental aircraft.

4

Nice analogy. Good advice.

Best regards, Bill

5

> (Note, I'll be developing on a Windows 7 machine.)

Sorry to hear that. It boggles my mind why developers torture themselves in such ways. :slight_smile:

Get you a good UNIX based system. Something with a halfway sane command line, whether that be Ubuntu, some other Linux flavor-of-the-week, or Mac OS X. In the long run I think you'll benefit greatly when it comes time to deploy your web application, regardless of what framework you choose. ASP.NET being the obvious exception, but there's no hope for you anyway if that's the option you choose. :wink:

Is the main benefit of developing on a Unix based system that it will be easier to deploy, or are there other problems/limitations with development in a Windows environment?

6

Anthony wrote:

anyway if that's the option you choose. :wink:

Is the main benefit of developing on a Unix based system that it will be easier to deploy, or are there other problems/limitations with development in a Windows environment?

Windows is frankly a pretty bad OS (and a completely inappropriate server OS, which is a big strike against .NET unless you're using Mono). I don't use Windows myself, but my understanding is that while a number of people are successfully using it for Rails development, there are a lot of common Ruby- and Rails-related tasks that work better on *nix. I hope someone who does use Windows will provide more specifics.

Best,

7

Anthony wrote:

anyway if that's the option you choose. :wink:

Is the main benefit of developing on a Unix based system that it will be easier to deploy, or are there other problems/limitations with development in a Windows environment?

I hope you realize I was kidding... mostly. Although it is my opinion that everything to do with software development is better on a *nix based system. Especially when it comes to open source software tools Like Ruby on Rails. Better tools, more secure, more open, more stable and they don't assume that EVERYONE runs Windows.

8

Dear friends,

sorry for intruding but Robert makes a good point and I would like to answer that.

> web2py in particular seems very interesting because it sounds like it > incorporates many ideas from ROR but may be easier to set up, learn, > develop with, and deploy. Does anyone have any experience with both > ROR and web2py?

Why use something that "incorporates many ideas from ROR" when you can use the framework that inspired them?

Rails is an excellent framework. I am a Python programmer but I would still pick Rails over most of the Python frameworks, both because of its design and because of how professionally it is evolving. Whether Anthony choose Rails, Django or web2py, I think it will be a huge improvement over PHP.

Yet the comment below deserves a response because it is based on a misconception. web2py does not attempt to copy Rails and it is not mix and match of features that you can find on other frameworks.

Here are some of its unique features: web2py does not require installation and has no configuration files; it has a one click button that turns apps into bytecode compiled apps that can be distributed in closed source; the web2py Database Abstraction Layer supports 10 different back-ends and it is the only DAL to support the Google App Engine (that means the same exact code runs on GAE and Oracle); It comes with a web based IDE that can be used for development, debugging, testing, deployment, internationalization/translation and maintenance (all in the browser); web2py helpers provide a server-side representation of the DOM and than be used to build generate XML/HTML programmatically without manipulating strings; web2py migrations do not require writing migration files, are automatic based changes in the models vs what is in the database; it has a different system for generating forms from models; web2py promise backward compatibility to the users and this was not broken since 2007 (even if lots of new features have been added).

The two main features that web2py got from Rails (in striking contrast with all of the other Python web frameworks) are: it gives precedence to "convention over configuration" over "explicit is better than implicit" (a Python motto, this pissed off a lot of python users); full Python in templates (in your case full Ruby in templates), while Django for example has its own template language.

Another comment was:

One does not learn to fly airplanes by becoming a test pilot for experimental aircraft.

True. web2py is 4-5 years younger than Rails and it has smaller number of users. Yet it is not an experimental product. It is 3 years old and counts >50 contributors and >1800 registered users. Most users use it for intranet applications which unfortunately you do not see.

Anyway, Rails came first and it was a great experience to learn from it. Thanks Rails.

Massimo

9

If you really really have to use Windows look into cygwin, and bitnamy rubystack Ruby Cloud Hosting, Ruby Installer, Docker Container and VM, also JetBrain's RubyMine: The Ruby on Rails IDE by JetBrains or SublimeText.

But if you can afford a Mac OS X laptop you will be on the same level as 99% of ruby developers... hey, it's what Linux always wanted to be (a usable desktop unix).

That being said, I've tried working ZendFramework and I'm always on the lookout for what other frameworks and languages are doing, the only competition to Ruby on Rails I would say, is coming from Scala and Lift, but there's about 3 people using it right now (they are the developers)... most other options seem to completely miss the boat at what ruby is good at: sweet concise syntax and rails: a complete web- framework that will teach you how to develop proper web applications. Now, if you haven't done any web dev, (simple PHP sites?) then you will be a bit overwhelmed and you might not have a reference point for why Rails is a good framework in comparison to others...

My 2C

10

In the past I have used Rails on both windows and linux without problems. Some posts here seem to imply that Rails runs better on Linux. Are you saying there is a problem with Rails on Windows? Or are you just suggesting Linux/Mac for the stability of the OS and the availability of other open source development tools?

Massimo

11

There's nothing inherently wrong with Rails on Windows, but there is a definite tendency of Windows installs to cause peculiar heisenbugs. For instance, there was a glitch a while back in Bundler (I seem to recall) where things went wrong if you were bundling in a directory whose name contained a space.

As another example, there was (still is, I think) a nasty race condition with the rake task that grabs the current Rails code from installed gems and unpacks it into vendor/rails. Under certain hard-to- reproduce combinations of virus scanners and environments the task would fail - but could be tricked into succeeding by adding a 1 or 2 second delay between creating the directory and unpacking the gem.

Both of these point back to a single issue: there's not nearly as many devs on Windows, so plugins and tools tend to get somewhat less thorough testing there and it's harder to find support.

Add in the lack of a single standard compiler environment and compatibility issues with other parts of the toolset (MySQL + some Windows versions, for instance) and you get a whole bunch of headaches that many developers simply don't want to have to deal with.

--Matt Jones