Rails Has Turned into Java
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Rails Has Turned into Java
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Re: Rails Has Turned into Java
#2In the year 2013 it is difficult to remember why Rails was such an explosive breath of fresh air, back when it burst onto the mainstage in 2004/2005. The essay that I think best captured the switch in popularity, from Java (and EJBs and Struts, etc) to Rails, was "The departure of the hyper-enthusiasts" by Bruce Eckel, written in December of 2005. He wrote:
"One of the basic tenets of the Python language has been that code should be simple and clear to express and to read, and Ruby has followed this idea, although not as far as Python has because of the inherited Perlisms. But for someone who has invested Herculean effort to use EJBs just to baby-sit a database, Rails must seem like the essence of simplicity. The understandable reaction for such a person is that everything they did in Java was a waste of time, and that Ruby is the one true path."
Re: Rails Has Turned into Java
#3It's the age old set of trade-offs between buy and build.
Build it all yourself and it takes forever, but you understand it all.
Buy it from somebody else, and you get it quickly, but you're at their mercy for efficient understandable code.
No language or framework is immune. Enjoy your java.
Re: Rails Has Turned into Java
#4"... Java, have you learned to easy yet?"
No, it hasn't. That's why we're using Rails.
And to be honest, it ain't that bad.
Re: Rails Has Turned into Java
#5To answer the question...Yes, Java has changed for the better. Give it a go...you'll be impressed.
Re: Rails Has Turned into Java
#6No, Rails hasn't turned into Java. Rails has matured into a complex ecosystem. Java has also matured into a complex ecosystem.
Frameworks upon frameworks is a recipe for complexity, potential performance problems, bottlenecks, and environmental/context-specific issues regardless of the language that you're using.
Will there ever be a language or simple framework that is popular, solves all problems, and doesn't get more complex as its ecosystem matures? I won't bet on it, but if you figure it out, someone will still eventually compare you to a no-longer-hipster-cool framework as an insult.
Re: Rails Has Turned into Java
#7"... Java, have you learned to easy yet?" No, it hasn't. That's why we're using Rails. And to be honest, it ain't that bad.
"... Java, have you learned to easy yet?"
And you know what it isn't easy. Having to deal with Ruby's dependency nightmares.
Re: Rails Has Turned into Java
#8Particularly for small startups and self-funded projects, the most important factor in technology choice is almost always "How long does it take me to translate my idea into a working product?".
For me, I haven't yet found anything that matches the ability of Rails to quickly go from just an idea into something that you can start pitching to customers.
While Rails and the entire community is dizzyingly large, with rapid innovation, new libraries, and a new set of best practices seemingly every few months, this ability to quickly create stuff differentiates it from Java completely.
Re: Rails Has Turned into Java
#9"... Java, have you learned to easy yet?" No, it hasn't. That's why we're using Rails. And to be honest, it ain't that bad.
"... Java, have you learned to easy yet?" Try Play, Grails, Vert.X. And you know what it isn't easy. Having to deal with Ruby's dependency nightmares.
Dependency management in ruby is trivial with bundler.
Re: Rails Has Turned into Java
#10There's not a lot of content in this article frankly. I also suspect the author has either never been exposed to an 'enterprise' J2EE or Spring app, or has simply forgotten what a labyrinthine nightmare those could become. Rails is more complex today, but it is still significantly easier than traditional Java frameworks.