21–30 of 46 posts
Personally, I tried to spend time on what was stable (Ruby 1.8.7 and Sinatra). This allowed me to focus much more on the language yet still feel productive.
Once you get past getting started, the decision on what to use (or who to ask) become much clearer.
I actually think this is a little unfair. Yes, the number of choices in Rails has proliferated, but a new user can easily ignore these choices. I don't think the situation is at all equivalent to the Java stack (which is the only other one I can comment on). To use Java, you probably want to use Maven, Spring for dependency injection, an MVC framework (Struts 2, Spring, Tapestry, etc...), an ORM framework (probably H…
It's easy to paint everyone's experience with your own isn't it? I answer questions from people new to Ruby a lot (given that I wrote one of the few and the earliest introductory books for Ruby that's free) and they are VERY often the exact questions he mentions here. Maybe people are too lazy to find the answers. Maybe they're utterly immobilized by a new tech stack that has a lot of choices. Maybe they just aren't…
I assure you that I am one of them. I'm probably one of the people whose questions you helped answer on a discussion forum.
The part where I am, as you said, painting everyone's experience with my own is comparing Rails to a Java based web programming stack. Someone coming from PHP, for instance, might find it kind of difficult to use a framework that (essentially) can't be used without some knowledge of OOP, MVC, and so forth (as opposed to just putting some things up on a page). Sure, there's a learning curve.
But the "immobilization" you mentioned happens in degrees. Yes, it always takes some work to get up in running, because programming isn't easy. However, I don't think that the range of choices immobilizes a new programmer in Rails to anywhere near the degree that it does in the Java world.
So while I would agree that I have a particular angle that isn't necessarily shared by everyone struggling with rails, I don't think that my experiences are unusual for a programmer with experience in Java who has gone through the learning curve on web app development in Java and Rails.
I actually think this is a little unfair. Yes, the number of choices in Rails has proliferated, but a new user can easily ignore these choices. I don't think the situation is at all equivalent to the Java stack (which is the only other one I can comment on). To use Java, you probably want to use Maven, Spring for dependency injection, an MVC framework (Struts 2, Spring, Tapestry, etc...), an ORM framework (probably H…
It's easy to paint everyone's experience with your own isn't it? I answer questions from people new to Ruby a lot (given that I wrote one of the few and the earliest introductory books for Ruby that's free) and they are VERY often the exact questions he mentions here. Maybe people are too lazy to find the answers. Maybe they're utterly immobilized by a new tech stack that has a lot of choices. Maybe they just aren't…
Really? Java is worse in this regard! C# even worse since you have to use mono if you aren't on windows and mono isn't 100% up to date with C# from MS. Python is very similar to ruby on this front, lot's of choices. PHP is well PHP.
I still think ruby in the best in this regard. install 1.8.7, gem install rails, but the agile rails book, start coding. A lot of the stuff in this article is just noise that no one needs to think about. In fact, there is a giant 'getting started' link on the rails site which answers this question pretty well.
http://rubyonrails.org/download
I'd still like an example of where else some one would go to find a greener pasture.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's easy to paint everyone's experience with your own isn't it? I answer questions from people new to Ruby a lot (given that I wrote one of the few and the earliest introductory books for Ruby that's free) and they are VERY often the exact questions he mentions here. Maybe people are too lazy to find the answers. Maybe they're utterly immobilized by a new tech stack that has a lot of choices. Maybe they just aren't…
"Whatever it is, we really need to find a simple way to address these questions ... they'll just move on to somewhere it is." Really? Java is worse in this regard! C# even worse since you have to use mono if you aren't on windows and mono isn't 100% up to date with C# from MS. Python is very similar to ruby on this front, lot's of choices. PHP is well PHP. I still think ruby in the best in this regard. install 1.8.7,…
Really this article was designed to point out that an overabundance of choice - even though they're great choices - can be harmful to new developers. And people should consider joining things like RailsMentors.org right now. Because more than ever, this is a time where one-on-one mentoring is all but necessary.
As far as greener pastures...I'd hate to see the day when any community measures itself by comparison to other communities, rather than on its own accomplishments.
Unnecessarily critical and not amusing. To bring up jruby and rubinius for someone starting out in ruby??? Why not also confuse him with Macruby ? I develop more for fun .. i develop in ruby 1.9 and test to see it works in 1.8.7 also. No big deal! I use "gem" for installing gems. Not bundler. No need to confuse someone new with RVM and ask him to play with all versions of ruby till he finds the one that suits him. It…
It would be silly to throw all of these items at a new developer, and no teacher in their right mind would ever do that.
But if you're trying to pick up the language on your own...that's what you'll see.
Just shut up and learn/do stuff. Learn/do the way you like it. This is how everything evolve!
You could write the same article for most in-depth subjects. Want to try model airplanes ? Get ready to spend a couple of days just to figure out the various materials, radios etc Want to try computer assisted music ? Which plugin ? Which host ? How do I write music with this, etc ? You could even rewrite the article for Java a few years back at least (should I go WebLogic ? WebSphere ? TomCat ? Struts or something e…
I just spent way too much time getting passenger and rvm and rails 2 and 3 to (all) play nice together in a deployment environment, though, so I'm biased.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Whatever it is, we really need to find a simple way to address these questions ... they'll just move on to somewhere it is." Really? Java is worse in this regard! C# even worse since you have to use mono if you aren't on windows and mono isn't 100% up to date with C# from MS. Python is very similar to ruby on this front, lot's of choices. PHP is well PHP. I still think ruby in the best in this regard. install 1.8.7,…
A lot of it is noise, absolutely. But while I wrote this as satire, it's based on the experiences I've seen from new developers. If you didn't know any better, it could be easy to think that Rails devs all use Rails 3, are completely swept up in the NoSQL movement, and don't have libraries that will run on Ruby 1.8 Really this article was designed to point out that an overabundance of choice - even though they're gre…
most value judgements can only be made relative to other like things.