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Will Rails be the new PHP?

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Re: Will Rails be the new PHP?

#11

Post by tubbo »

Rails is a lot harder to get started with than PHP, you can't just upload a file to your server and visit it in a browser. You need to know a bit about the command line to be a functional Rails programmer. But I'm sure we still have a crappy developer problem, that is in fact what happens as communities grow, the number of mediocre or sub-par people in that community also grows (usually at a faster pace than the great devs).

The testing culture, difficulty in deployment/setup, and general "application-style" attitude of Rails apps (just on the name alone...have you ever said "PHP app" in your life??), where the web site is treated as a web application and programmed as such, is what prevents Rails from becoming the next PHP.

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP?

#12

Post by gtCameron »

Does Tiger Woods sit around thinking about how all of the weekend hackers at the local country club are making the game of golf worse?

Nope, its the exact opposite, the more popular the game is the more the people at the top of it stand out. If you think you are the shining example of the elite Ruby programmer you should be doing everything you can to get more people involved in the ecosystem, the bigger that gets the better opportunities you'll have in the future.

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP?

#13

Post by kaiuhl »

While new developers are coming up learning Ruby as their first language and in the context of Rails, keep in mind that Rails introduces you to much of the core Ruby language, idioms and at least a few design patterns and useful abstractions. It also adds Sass and Coffeescript. There's much more complexity and therefore knowledge required for a "whiz kid" to build a useful Rails app that it's hardly a fair comparison. This "subpar software" meets a need that seasoned developers can't or won't.

Also of note: it's no longer 1999. People expect a bit more out of their website than during the glory days of the independent 19-year-old PHP developer. These novices are orders of magnitude more capable than PHP developers of a decade ago. These folks building one-off websites for clients are also often doing both design and development—something many developers are awful at.

This elitism should stop. Programming is a means to an end, and we should welcome any and everyone despite their level of commitment, talent, or focus.

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP?

#14

Post by tubbo »

mindstab wrote: post #6

um no? PHP "has a relatively small community, with the majority of people working under the radar and on their own?" ? Where is he getting these stats? relative to what? For instance http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.... Says PHP the language is more popular than Ruby the language (let alone the subset of Ruby programmers who use Rails). I don't get where that perceived smallness comes from.…

PHP has a lot of people using it. That doesn't mean it has a huge community. Most people who use PHP do not frequently meet up and talk to other folks who use the language.

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP?

#15

Post by jacques_chester »

Will linkbait be the new inflammatory headline?

Will handwaving be the new fluff?

Will insubstantial murmurings be the new mumbling into whiskers?

Will this turn out to be a useful blog post or is it just a bunch of questions that can't be answered because they're pretty close to meaningless?

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP?

#16

Post by trevelyan »

prezjordan wrote: post #3

Rails has a steeper learning curve than PHP. And I can't see Rails (easily) being sloppily-disorganized like PHP can. So I'm going to go with no.

You can program messy Ruby as easily as messy PHP. Rails is an MVC framework. PHP has plenty of those as well.

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP?

#17

Post by ehutch79 »

mindstab wrote: post #6

um no? PHP "has a relatively small community, with the majority of people working under the radar and on their own?" ? Where is he getting these stats? relative to what? For instance http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.... Says PHP the language is more popular than Ruby the language (let alone the subset of Ruby programmers who use Rails). I don't get where that perceived smallness comes from.…

1) userbase is not a community, usergroups and such are.

2) the sub-par php code thing? go post on place like craig's list, where the uninformed who need developers might post things, and see what kind of developers respond. go look at wordpress plugins. go look at tutorials and examples on blogs. while yes, there are certainly well qualified php programmers, you're going to see a lot of horrifying code.

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP?

#18

Post by bpatrianakos »

mindstab wrote: post #6

um no? PHP "has a relatively small community, with the majority of people working under the radar and on their own?" ? Where is he getting these stats? relative to what? For instance http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.... Says PHP the language is more popular than Ruby the language (let alone the subset of Ruby programmers who use Rails). I don't get where that perceived smallness comes from.…

I blame the bubble. HN has a bubble, the Ruby community has its bubble, and so does the Rails community. Bubbles intersect but overall I blame the bubble(s).

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP?

#19

Post by prezjordan »

trevelyan wrote: post #16
prezjordan wrote: post #3

Rails has a steeper learning curve than PHP. And I can't see Rails (easily) being sloppily-disorganized like PHP can. So I'm going to go with no.

You can program messy Ruby as easily as messy PHP. Rails is an MVC framework. PHP has plenty of those as well.

Right, but Rails will always have some sort of organization. That being said it is possible to go against the grain and not use Rails' default directory structure - but that's difficult.

I'm comparing Rails to vanilla PHP - just as the author is. People are exposed to PHP's low barrier of entry (again, vanilla here) because you can write an application with PHP/Apache/mySQL very quickly. However, because of this, most instances are very hacky.

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP?

#20

Post by rjbond3rd »

joshcrews wrote: post #8

Maybe. If Ruby / Ruby on Rails is a good language for web-development, easy for beginners to learn, the community is helpful, beginners feel welcome, and experienced developers invest in teaching; you'd expect to find a small army of 'just get it to work' developers knocking out small projects and charging too little. I'm ok with that. Small projects get done. Not everyone needs a $125/hr consultant. Some of those pr…

> If Ruby on Rails has, or were to have, a small army of beginner developers writing poor code on small projects and charging too little for it; I think it would be a healthy thing.

Hmm, well I see your point, but disagree. It's just like the WordPress situation for small businesses.

Someone comes in (usually a "designer") and cobbles some WP plugins and a template into a seemingly okay site for $500, but eventually the small business owner hits the limitations of that arrangement, and (from what I've observed) good programmers won't even take $5,000 to salvage a mess like that.

And not only does the customer end up feeling burned, it also leaves behind some toxic consequences, e.g., the customer has no idea what programming costs nor the difference between a prototype and production quality. So while we all start somewhere, this kind of low-rent ecosystem has certain enduring negative consequences (evident on Craigslist).

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