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Rails Has Turned into Java

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Re: Rails Has Turned into Java

#51

Post by veemjeem »

tmo9d wrote: post #20
kevinconroy wrote: post #6

No, 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 m…

I added in a note, I think this is the multi-year result of not having a old, grey-haired standards committee around creating APIs. I made fun of Sun and Oracle for doing things like this for years, but after futzing around with Rails frameworks, integration, and edge-cases. I think I would have preferred to have people sitting around a conference call saying things like, "Hey Devise people, your authentication appro…

I think the nice thing about Rails is that the core committee tries to make the core framework slimmer by removing features and stuffing them into gems. It's nice that Rails keeps features out that might be considered "core" by others, like authentication. It allows new "core-like features" to be adapted by the community.

Re: Rails Has Turned into Java

#52

Post by packet »

tmo9d wrote: post #24
squidsoup wrote: post #10

There'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.

I suspect that your suspicions are wrong because I wrote the article and I spend much of my day writing both Java and Ruby. I just find it easier these days to work with Spring 3. Why? Because the Spring and the Oracle folks reacted to Rails pretty quickly and came up with a lot of solutions that might surprise you. It takes just about the same LoC now to do in Spring what I'm doing in Java. The difference is that th…

I suspect most that complain about Java and have written JEE code in the past have never seen Spring 3.

Re: Rails Has Turned into Java

#53

Post by tmo9d »

jgjgcghjhhbfv wrote: post #28
kevinconroy wrote: post #6

No, 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 m…

That is fine and true. But if you guys know this why do rails people love to bash on Java and act like rails is the second coming of Jesus. Fine, you love your language but why the unnecessary insults? That always bugged me. A community like that is toxic.

To be fair, at the time it was introduced, Rails was, in fact, the 2nd coming of Jesus. I've met DHH in person I can attest to the fact that when he walks, the faint sound of angels fills the air. It's true.

Re: Rails Has Turned into Java

#54

Post by [deleted] »

RyanZAG wrote: post #30

I don't get the Java hate. The stuff in Java is not there just to make your life miserable, it's a result of thousands of people spending millions of hours on complex problems finding that certain methods work well when your source code base becomes too large for simplistic methods. The fact is: Java works, and it works well. Ruby/Rails is getting there, as we see from larger and larger code bases being build on Ruby…

[deleted]

Re: Rails Has Turned into Java

#55

Post by tmo9d »

Skoofoo wrote: post #29

> Sure, Rails itself is straightforward, but the frameworks you slap on top of it can quickly become burdensome abstractions: RefineryCMS, Devise, Omniauth, Carrierwave, Unicorn, Rack Rewrite, Fog, New Relic, Foreman, AMQP, and Honeybadger, not to mention the extra magic that Heroku gems throw into the mix (backups and other fun). You don't need to use any of these. I once tried to use Devise for a project. I fiddled…

But, Devise is one of the better frameworks out there. Along with Omniauth it saved a huge amount of work. I'd reconsider Devise and look at Omniauth, it is a huge time saver.

New Relic is awesome, but expensive and they do have an aggressive marketing automation thing going on with the emails and such. But, you can't blame them for that, they have to pay the bills and more power to them for that.

Re: Rails Has Turned into Java

#56

Post by Thieum22 »

aantix wrote: post #42
lkrubner wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is, other systems have now emerged that can reasonably claim to represent the cutting edge of simplicity and ease. Rails held that distinction for several years, it was the reference point people used to criticize or praise other systems. But Rails is no longer the clear leader in ease of use or sophistication of 3rd party libraries. In response to Rails, lots of new languages and frameworks emerged…

Curious, what other web dev frameworks offer a unified stack (ORM, deployment, dependency management, testing, project structuring)?

ASP.NET MVC + Entity Framework + NuGet could be a candidate. At least it's going in this direction.

Re: Rails Has Turned into Java

#57

Post by tmo9d »

danielsju6 wrote: post #25

This is bullshit. I'm no fan boy but you can't blame yourself when you've cornered yourself in an complex case of interdependencies. BREAKING NEWS: OVER-ENGINEERED PIECE OF SOFTWARE IS REVEALED TO BE OVER-ENGINEERED. I don't use Refinery, Devise, OmniAuth, Unicorn, Rack Rewrite, Fog, AMQP, or Heroku. I use Passenger with Apache or Nginx, self-host, and write my own core functionality like authentication. Rails is sti…

Who said anything about Dynamic typing?

I agree with you that Rails still excels at allowing you to slap together a quick prototype, but I think that the world has caught up with Rails (and possibly bested it at this point).

Re: Rails Has Turned into Java

#58

Post by jbail »

tmo9d wrote: post #39
spellboots wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dependency management in ruby is trivial with bundler.

Oh I disagree entirely. After having spend two days debugging someone's versionless Gemfile / bundler problem on my CI server, I want someone to pay for my pain.

That's not Bundler's fault. It's the fault of the person who made the versionless Gemfile.

There's really no comparison between using Bundler and mucking around with JAR files or Ant scripts in Java. I've even seen Python codebases with a Java-esque rats nest of dependencies that are just as painful to get setup correctly.

Bundler is way easier. I've never been on a Rails project where it took more than 30 minutes to get the env setup and it's in large part, thanks to Bundler. Admittedly, I haven't touched Java in a few years, but last I checked, Java had nothing like Bundler (which is a shame, because it could really use it).

Re: Rails Has Turned into Java

#59

Post by cglee »

fleitz wrote: post #34
RyanZAG wrote: post #30

I don't get the Java hate. The stuff in Java is not there just to make your life miserable, it's a result of thousands of people spending millions of hours on complex problems finding that certain methods work well when your source code base becomes too large for simplistic methods. The fact is: Java works, and it works well. Ruby/Rails is getting there, as we see from larger and larger code bases being build on Ruby…

The whole point of rails is not to build massive projects. If you're building massive projects with thousands of classes on rails then you should be all means switch to J2EE.

This needs to be repeated over and over. We see so many pundits pushing the "right" way to build Rails applications now. Rails was a reaction against large applications. The major use case is to build CRUDs in front of a db. If your application out grows Rails, it's not a condemnation about Rails, or your team, or an earlier choice.

If you're Twitter or Facebook, don’t use Rails out of the box. For the rest of us who want to work on small applications, Rails is still beautiful. And when I say small, I mean applications around the complexity of a Basecamp or Github.

Re: Rails Has Turned into Java

#60

Post by rzendacott »

As someone who is just now learning Rails, I'm loving it. Is this an actual issue that should push me away from the technology? What other technologies are there that streamline the development process as much as rails?
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