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Rails has Two Default Stacks

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Re: Rails has Two Default Stacks

#91

How do these two options stack up to just not using Rails and using something like Sinatra instead for beginners? When I started with Rails, I spent 2 days figuring out the standard web framework functions / workflow, and then I gave up. When I picked up Sinatra, the pieces were small enough that I could learn them individually, master them, and learn how they were put together. Then, when I came back to Rails, I had…

When I decided to bring Rails into my team recently, I decided we should produce some prototypes in Sinatra first.

With a single file it's easy to introduce some of the key concepts that are needed to understand Rails (especially for those coming from PHP).

Re: Rails has Two Default Stacks

#92
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've taught hundreds of beginners new to Rails, and we've found that beginners want to learn about all the alternatives - it's like they have to survey the entire landscape before starting. No matter if we're teaching TestUnit or Rspec, someone will ask about the alternative. It's so easy to get side-tracked into evaluating alternatives and just get overwhelmed with the options. What we've found works is this: 1. Be…

> 1. Beginners need a curated stack by someone they trust. "Here, this is the stack to learn from; stop wasting time evaluating and get started." That's supposed to be what Rails itself IS, right? Isn't that the point of it being "opinionated", it's supposed to BE the curated stack from someone you trust. If it's failing, that's a problem. It certainly is frustrating when you're trying to get the actual Rails stack t…

Exactly.

Personally, I find the default Rails stack is completely fine for everything I need. I'd not even heard of half of these options in the "alternative stacks" in TFA and the comments here until today. OK, I'd heard of HAML and the other unit testing frameworks, but that's it.

I don't think there's really a big issue here. People could just as easily get distracted by all the different npms in node.js, or the different technologies in the enterprise Java world.

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