1 PHP (language) isn't comparable to Rails (framework)

Rails articles constantly make this mistake: they tell you how great Rails (framework) is by comparing it to PHP (language). This article seems to be no exception.

All though I agree that Ruby is an awesome language and that Rails is a pretty cool framework (they are my preferred tools), I think alot of developers who already know PHP would probably be just as well off with something like Symfony, which is basically Rails for PHP (or CakePHP as you mentioned, haven’t used it).

Same thing for other languages: MVC frameworks Rails-style is popping up all over, and even though Ruby brings alot to the table, you can be very efficient with these kinds of frameworks for other languages as well.

posted at 10:54 am on April 22, 2008 by Christian Johansen

2 Good to hear both sides

I did quite a bit of RoR research for a website intended for a client. I found the language’s elegance and simplicity very refreshing, and once I’d got my head around the Ruby language, I found things to be quite natural.

It was good to see that this article contained some of the negatives of the framework. Many people point to the performance argument, stating that it is too slow for larger sites, but there are many examples where it has worked. I was also interested to hear of the some of the big names on the web (Amazon, eBay for example) taking a large interest too.

posted at 11:43 am on April 22, 2008 by Shane Porter

3 Seaside

Might as well go the whole way and get continuations going! www.seaside.st

posted at 12:24 pm on April 22, 2008 by Robert Grant

4 Perfect Timing

I’ve been looking for more information on RoR and these two articles provided me with exactly what I was looking for. I was deciding whether to expand my PHP knowledge or delve into Rails. I have already started to increase my understanding of PHP, however, after reading this, I will certainly start to learn rails sooner rather than later.

posted at 12:56 pm on April 22, 2008 by Steven Killen

5 Great Explaination/Intro

Really awesome introduction into what RoR really is. I’ve been struggling these past few weeks trying to learn more and more about CakePHP, and this article definitely cleared a few things up pertaining to the MVC methodology of web development.

I wish to pick up RoR soon, but probably will stick with a PHP framework for now.

posted at 01:51 pm on April 22, 2008 by John Barbagallo

6 Ecstatic to see the negatives!

I’m ecstatic to see the negatives presented. I haven’t deployed any RoR personally, but I’ve worked on several sites, and found it to be a real mess. Requiring 200 mb of Ram to simply run a small site for a small audience is not appropriate, and the vast majority of articles I have read on RoR gloss over this.

The size & scope of my work means I probably won’t ever use RoR: it’s not worth learning it, to me, because my average client isn’t going to spend the money on the VPS required to run it.

It’s still a nice, elegant framework, and I wouldn’t complain if I ended up working in it, but right now it just doesn’t seem feasible.

posted at 03:50 pm on April 22, 2008 by david streever

7 Thank you rails

One on the things I love about Rails is how it has popularised well structured code for the web developer community.

PHP, much like HTML, can be written as shambolic or as elegant as you wish, with the latter becoming more prevalent—following the same cleanup crusdade that the “web standards” movement had on HTML.

I really like Rails although I think there’s a missed opportunity with it currently: the ability to have a set of well structured, inter-locking modules (content updating interfaces, blog, shop, etc) so that each project done by the millions of people out there doesn’t duplicate a lot of their work.

SilverStripe solves that issue, and is written in the easy-to-host language of PHP5. See http://www.viddler.com/siggy/videos/1/ and http://www.silverstripe.com

posted at 04:07 pm on April 22, 2008 by Sigurd Magnusson

8 Please stay far away from Mongrel

I’ll be brief Ruby has nice features.

Mongrel ( the de facto Ruby on Rails Application server) does not The link below is from the head Mongrel developer.

IMHO he must be smoking some serious stuff to even think this is worth using in production.

http://www.zedshaw.com/rants/rails_is_a_ghetto.html

Outside of that perl is better suited and more mature for general purpose coding. Stay far away from RoR unless you are willing to deal with a new language and a new framework.

posted at 04:57 pm on April 22, 2008 by Mark S

9 Not quite there

In my humble opinion, Ruby on Rails is not quite 100% there yet. It’s best-suited for that “sweet spot” mentioned in this article, but even then there are drawbacks and complications, such as hosting, that come into play. And this type of problem is dramatically magnified if YOU are the one maintaining the Web server. :)

The constant comparison of Rails to PHP is also getting old; it’s like Hilary vs. Obama. If Rails could stand on its own without having to try to downplay PHP’s “less elegant” ways, it would spread much faster.

Anyway, I built a few Rails applications for a few clients. I really like Ruby on Rails (it’s some of the most fun I’ve had coding), but PHP, for now, is just the better solution for 99% of the tasks out there, so I’ll stick with it.

Let Rails take a few more steps, and we’ll start seeing it become more prominent.

posted at 08:43 pm on April 22, 2008 by David R.