Web 2.0 Platform with Ruby

rubyonrails-talk
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Hi I have a general question. I am just begging to study IS. So I have plans to build a web site, similar to MySpace or Facebook. Will RoR be the language to work with? What are the prons and cons of using something else? And I am a newbie. How long will it take to learn everthing. the LAMP? well, ruby instead of php. or do I still need php? do I need AJAX?

Thanks.

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Vector wrote:

Hi I have a general question. I am just begging to study IS. So I have plans to build a web site, similar to MySpace or Facebook. Will RoR be the language to work with?

RoR is a platform, not a language, but otherwise the answer is "yes".

If both you and Merb were more mature, I'd say go for Merb.

Yet RoR is incredibly well documented and supported, for one reason: It contains an elegant solution for each of the super-hard problems in web development. The web was invented in a rush, and filled up with half-assed technologies. (Anyone disagreeing with me must prove their Spam buckets are completely empty first.)

Ruby is such a good programming language that its community has collaborated to produce "best practices" solutions for each web problem. For HTML we have eRB, for Ajax we have prototype.js, for databases we have ActiveRecord, etc. (Note I didn't say each of these was "best". I said they use "best practices", which are sophisticated software engineering guidelines that keep problems manageable.)

What are the prons and cons of using something else?

The corporate tools will attempt to use "vendor lockin" on you, to force you to only buy their product.

And I am a newbie. How long will it take to learn everthing. the LAMP? well, ruby instead of php. or do I still need php? do I need AJAX?

You are mixing apples and oranges. PHP is a language, LAMP is a strategy (Linux Apache MySQL and an interPreted language), and AJAX is a DHTML technique.

To learn them all, as rapidly as you can, get with your local users groups.

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thanks