ASKHN: Django OR Rails • Hacker News Board

Re: ASKHN: Django OR Rails

#11

Post by robosox » Tue, Jun 15, 2010, 9:18 AM UTC

boyter wrote: post #4

Id say go with the language you prefer. If you fancy yourself a Pythonista then go with Django. If you prefer Ruby syntax then go with Rails. Both languages are different to C#, or VB.NET which is where you are probably coming from so dip into each and follow the path of least resistance. Honestly when it comes down to productivity there isn't much to be gained from using one over the other. I guess one thing that is…

Yes. The way you've posed the question is slightly backwards to me. Sit down and take a crack at learning both Python and Ruby first. Whichever language you prefer will obviously guide you toward which framework to use.

Another thing to consider is what your goals are here. Is this just learning for learning's sake, or is there a project you have in mind that you want to build/prototype? In my experience the differences between Django & RoR are minor, but your end goals obviously will also help guide you toward one framework over the other.

Re: ASKHN: Django OR Rails

#12

Post by michael_scheibe » Tue, Jun 15, 2010, 9:51 AM UTC

I've worked with Rails and Django and they are both excellent choices.

As others have said, try some tutorials for each to get a feel.

Django Tutorial: http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.2/

Rails Guides: http://guides.rails.info/getting_started.html

The soon to be released Rails 3 looks excellent, so I would personally use that over Django 1.2.

Also, the Rails community is a bit more organized as everyone uses GitHub, so there are some fantastic and well maintained gems that can help you speed through your development.

Rails Resources:

http://ruby5.envylabs.com/ - Great podcast discussing recent developments in the Ruby/Rails community.

http://ruby-toolbox.com/ - Overview of gems by category. Great to figure out what people are using for pagination or search or whatever.

http://railscasts.com/ - Screencasts covering new gems and Rails features.

http://railsconf.blip.tv - Videos from the latest RailsConf, if you want to get a feel for the community.

Django Resources:

http://djangodose.com/ - Good Django podcasts. There is one for the community stuff, and one for the newest features of Django trunk.

http://djangocon.blip.tv/ - DjangoCon, check it out for the same reasons as RailsConf.

Re: ASKHN: Django OR Rails

#13

Post by c00p3r » Tue, Jun 15, 2010, 12:37 PM UTC

Take a look at Sinatra (http://www.sinatrarb.com), and Haml (http://haml-lang.com/) If you will feel that you like this "descriptive" approach (Ruby is great for creating DSLs), then you probably will like RoR also.

In short, python is clean and very pragmatic, while ruby is nice and different. ^_^

Personally I think RoR3 is going very fast toward becoming a new J2EE - at least being equally popular and bloated. ^_^

Re: ASKHN: Django OR Rails

#14

Post by fr0man » Tue, Jun 15, 2010, 6:06 PM UTC

You might want to work through some ASP.NET MVC tutorials using your language of choice before jumping into Django or Rails. That will give you an easier entry point to learning MVC (which is quite different conceptually from ASP.NET Webforms). Then you can read through some language tutorials and decide whether you prefer Ruby or Python. ASP.NET MVC is nearly identical to Rails minus ActiveRecord, so you could easily jump from there to Rails development. Though if you're going to be developing on a Windows box, Django is much more of a first class citizen there than Rails. I also had a ton of deployment problems trying to deploy Rails to a Windows server. Just a tip: no matter where you dev, don't try deploying to a Windows Server machine unless you have to. Linux plays much more nicely with both Django and Rails.

Edit: Anyone care to explain the downvoting? I'm not whining; I'm just genuinely curious. I thought my post was fairly informative, and I tried to give love to both Django and Rails. I had problems going from C# Webforms to Rails, partly because I was a noob, partly because I was trying to learn a new framework (Rails), a new language (Ruby, which is very different from C#), and partly because Ruby and Rails both have some configuration issues on Windows. It's nothing you can't overcome, but added all together it made for a very steep entry to becoming a Rails developer. The OP sounded like he was coming from a very similar situation to me.

Re: ASKHN: Django OR Rails

#15

Post by stephenjudkins » Tue, Jun 15, 2010, 6:31 PM UTC

They're both great frameworks.

Most of the complaints I had about Rails have been addressed by the upcoming Rails 3. If you're learning Rails for fun, you might as well start using the Rails 3 beta since there are tons of new goodies in it.

Network effects are very important for these kind of things, so I'd recommend checking out local user groups for both languages/frameworks to see where you'd fit in best. It seems a good deal more people in my town (Portland, OR) are familiar with Rails than Django. Anecdotally, while there are more Ruby/Rails developers around, their average proficiency is lower than Python/Django devs. Also, the culture surrounding each framework has a different vibe.

I don't want to draw too many generalizations, but in my personal view differences in culture do exist. Getting to know other developers who use both tools should be an important part of picking which language/framework to use.

Or, learn to use both. It'll be good for you. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each language will make you a better developer, and reduce the chance of you becoming an--excuse the term--ignorant zealot.