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Will Rails be the new PHP

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Re: Will Rails be the new PHP

#21

Post by chromatic »

chaostheory wrote: post #15

I think this article makes a really really bad comparison. With both Ruby and PHP, there are many ways to write something terrible (especially with Ruby's more than one way to do one thing Perl philosophy). However with Rails being an opinionated framework, there is typically one really publicized opinionated way to do one thing (ala Python style). With the opinion coming from good developers, I don't see quality goi…

However with Rails being an opinionated framework, there is typically one really publicized opinionated way to do one thing (ala Python style).

Perhaps so, but as with Python that way changes over time.

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP

#22

Post by chaostheory »

chromatic wrote: post #21
chaostheory wrote: post #15

I think this article makes a really really bad comparison. With both Ruby and PHP, there are many ways to write something terrible (especially with Ruby's more than one way to do one thing Perl philosophy). However with Rails being an opinionated framework, there is typically one really publicized opinionated way to do one thing (ala Python style). With the opinion coming from good developers, I don't see quality goi…

However with Rails being an opinionated framework, there is typically one really publicized opinionated way to do one thing (ala Python style). Perhaps so, but as with Python that way changes over time .

Staying on subject - does it matter, as long as that evolved way remains a reasonable and good way to develop?

I started with Rails 2.x, and I did find it painful to transition to Rails 3.x after a few years of not using it. In the end though, I find myself really liking the decisions made for Rails 3.x. It's helped my productivity a lot.

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP

#23

Post by drbawb »

chaostheory wrote: post #22
chromatic wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However with Rails being an opinionated framework, there is typically one really publicized opinionated way to do one thing (ala Python style). Perhaps so, but as with Python that way changes over time .

Staying on subject - does it matter, as long as that evolved way remains a reasonable and good way to develop? I started with Rails 2.x, and I did find it painful to transition to Rails 3.x after a few years of not using it. In the end though, I find myself really liking the decisions made for Rails 3.x. It's helped my productivity a lot.

>Does it matter . . .

To you, no; to me? No.

The same thing happened to me: Rails 3 came along. My web applications weren't so large that the port would be unreasonable, so I gritted my teeth and came out feeling like I had gained something. (Knowledge, experience, productivity.)

---

For every "you", however, there is someone with a non-trivial Rails 2.x codebase that simply won't invest the time or energy to port it. So they'll keep using it; keep developing libraries for it, keep patching it, etc.

Continue this trend, and I'd imagine you end up with something like the Python2/3 schism.

For an example of what this leads to, look at Rust.

Arch Linux uses Python 3 as the default for /usr/bin/python, Rust (0.3 and it looks like 0.4) fails to compile because LLVM can't stand Python 3. [This is described in the Rust 0.4 release notes. Of course the fix is a simple symlink and an EXPORT= away once you install Python2.]

So you end up with _new and exciting projects_ that require you to install and maintain old tools and libraries. Why? Because eventually _a non-negligible_ number of library maintainers stop trying to hit a moving target.

I'm not saying Rails will _necessarily_ go down that road; but Python has already been there, and the Python 2/3 schism isn't pretty. It's a possibility worth entertaining, anyways.

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP

#24

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

If you consider the majority of new web projects are being made in Rails rather than PHP, I think the comparison applies.

I think the panorama is more diverse nowadays though. Back in the day, you basically had PHP or ASP (with Windows hosting being more expensive), and only higher-end hosting had the option for CGI. Now it's more like an equal split between PHP, .NET, Java (all frameworks), Rails, Python, et all.

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP

#25

Post by chaostheory »

drbawb wrote: post #23
chaostheory wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Staying on subject - does it matter, as long as that evolved way remains a reasonable and good way to develop? I started with Rails 2.x, and I did find it painful to transition to Rails 3.x after a few years of not using it. In the end though, I find myself really liking the decisions made for Rails 3.x. It's helped my productivity a lot.

>Does it matter . . . To you, no; to me? No. The same thing happened to me: Rails 3 came along. My web applications weren't so large that the port would be unreasonable, so I gritted my teeth and came out feeling like I had gained something. (Knowledge, experience, productivity.) --- For every "you", however, there is someone with a non-trivial Rails 2.x codebase that simply won't invest the time or energy to port it…

You have good and valid points that I agree with, I was just arguing was from the standpoint of "Rails / Ruby becoming another PHP"

> I'm not saying Rails will _necessarily_ go down that road; but Python has already been there, and the Python 2/3 schism isn't pretty. It's a possibility worth entertaining, anyways.

I feel the Ruby community is different from Python's. I think people who work with Ruby and/or Rails like new toys and they are willing to adapt in order to keep playing. If anything I feel the bigger danger is for Ruby devs migrating to nice shiny toys that node.js has to offer.

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP

#26

Post by trevelyan »

slurgfest wrote: post #17
sandfox wrote: post #12

Will $framework be the new $language? Fairly apple and pears comparison and somewhat pointless.

PHP is somewhat unusual in the extent to which things normally reserved for frameworks are included in the language. For example, PHP comes with a template language. It isn't so unreasonable to compare these facilities to analogous ones provided by frameworks.

PHP has a large number of frameworks that serve the same purpose as Rails. I'm fond of both Rails and CakePHP, and while there are differences between the two, talking about how "Ruby" avoids messy code by forcing MVC onto people but "PHP" doesn't is silly.

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP

#27

Post by ericclemmons »

up_and_up wrote: post #8

I dont think so. Having migrated to Ruby and Rails from PHP there are a number of compelling differences that will avert the gloom and doom the author seems to mention: * Rails is driven/maintained by really high quality developers who adhere to best practices * The project is well-organized, opinionated and focused, developers tend to follow the one right way of doing things. * The Rails Ecosystem of gems and plugin…

Find/Replace "rails" with "Symfony" and you'll have the PHP equivalent. Also, "bundles" instead of "gems". This is why PHP negativity has been increasingly misguided for the past 2 years.

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP

#28

Post by darkf »

up_and_up wrote: post #8

I dont think so. Having migrated to Ruby and Rails from PHP there are a number of compelling differences that will avert the gloom and doom the author seems to mention: * Rails is driven/maintained by really high quality developers who adhere to best practices * The project is well-organized, opinionated and focused, developers tend to follow the one right way of doing things. * The Rails Ecosystem of gems and plugin…

Can you give examles of these "best practices"?

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP

#29

Post by dkannan »

ericclemmons wrote: post #27
up_and_up wrote: post #8

I dont think so. Having migrated to Ruby and Rails from PHP there are a number of compelling differences that will avert the gloom and doom the author seems to mention: * Rails is driven/maintained by really high quality developers who adhere to best practices * The project is well-organized, opinionated and focused, developers tend to follow the one right way of doing things. * The Rails Ecosystem of gems and plugin…

Find/Replace "rails" with "Symfony" and you'll have the PHP equivalent. Also, "bundles" instead of "gems". This is why PHP negativity has been increasingly misguided for the past 2 years.

most of the PHP devs i know write raw PHP. they do not use a framework. one team built their own (4 years back). And NONE of them wrote tests. Actually i have never seen or heard any php dev writing and evangelizing tests

In ruby, mostly everyone i know, uses rails and mostly everyone writes some test. either TDD or after writing the code.

It is not as bad as PHP but personally even for me, i should write better rails code

Re: Will Rails be the new PHP

#30

Post by dkannan »

darkf wrote: post #28
up_and_up wrote: post #8

I dont think so. Having migrated to Ruby and Rails from PHP there are a number of compelling differences that will avert the gloom and doom the author seems to mention: * Rails is driven/maintained by really high quality developers who adhere to best practices * The project is well-organized, opinionated and focused, developers tend to follow the one right way of doing things. * The Rails Ecosystem of gems and plugin…

Can you give examles of these "best practices"?

check http://www.amazon.com/Rails-AntiPatterns-Refactoring-Addison...

other than that, 1. write tests 2. good community. for some measure of good

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