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Want to learn Rails? Start here.

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Re: Want to learn Rails? Start here.

#21

Post by programminggeek »

squidsoup wrote: post #15

Somewhat tangential, but I wish there were more comprehensive learning resources for Clojure, particularly getting started with web development. Given that there is no equivalent of Django or Rails, and web development in clj is really about assembling a collection of libraries (Ring, Compojure/Moustache, Enlive/Hiccup etc), it is much harder for the initiate to understand how everything fits together. The fact that…

Um, why exactly would you use something like Clojure if you're not comfortable building up your own particular set of libraries that you like for your project?

Clojure to me seems like a language culture that would likely tend towards smaller libraries that do specific things than something with batteries included and such like Rails.

If you want something on the JVM with more of a batteries included approach Play Framework for Java and Scala is pretty nice and Lift for Scala is cool if you're willing to take a very different approach to your web stack.

Re: Want to learn Rails? Start here.

#22

Post by programminggeek »

I'm a big fan of the giving myself some kind of challenge to prove out a framework or technology. Like, "build a meme site" or "build twitter" or something like that. It does two things. One, you are forced to use the technology for a real thing to solve real problems. Two, it becomes very apparent how good the documentation/community/libraries are. Both are critical because most any technology can solve most any problem you throw at it if you are willing to write enough code, but the libraries, documentation, and community make a huge difference in the day to day experience of using any language or framework.

Re: Want to learn Rails? Start here.

#23

Post by squidsoup »

programminggeek wrote: post #21
squidsoup wrote: post #15

Somewhat tangential, but I wish there were more comprehensive learning resources for Clojure, particularly getting started with web development. Given that there is no equivalent of Django or Rails, and web development in clj is really about assembling a collection of libraries (Ring, Compojure/Moustache, Enlive/Hiccup etc), it is much harder for the initiate to understand how everything fits together. The fact that…

Um, why exactly would you use something like Clojure if you're not comfortable building up your own particular set of libraries that you like for your project? Clojure to me seems like a language culture that would likely tend towards smaller libraries that do specific things than something with batteries included and such like Rails. If you want something on the JVM with more of a batteries included approach Play Fr…

> Um, why exactly would you use something like Clojure if you're not comfortable building up your own particular set of libraries that you like for your project?

I decided upon Clojure as I think it meets the needs of my project well, which is basically an expert system. I need to consume a number of domain specific java libraries, and the native support for logic programming with core.logic and datalog is a big win. Clojure certainly wasn't the easiest choice - I would be much further ahead if I started with Ruby.

> Clojure to me seems like a language culture that would likely tend towards smaller libraries that do specific things than something with batteries included and such like Rails.

I should clarify that I think Clojure's favouring of smaller composable libraries is ultimately a better approach than the monolithic framework. It is much more difficult to get to a point where you're productive however.

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