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Ruby Web Dev The Other Way

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31–40 of 65 posts

Re: Ruby Web Dev The Other Way

#31

Yes, you shouldn't do Ruby development on Windows if at all possible. But is there any reason why OS X is not mentioned in the Linux section? It is after all what many Ruby developers use.

Linux is mentioned because it is a common server OS and Linux knowledge is the most helpful for web dev. OSX do not add any extra value to this aspect of knowledge (despite I do use OSX as desktop OS).

Re: Ruby Web Dev The Other Way

#32

begin minor rant... Occam's razor is misused in the manifesto. The author indicates that it means "Prefer simple solutions", which it doesn't. Occam's razor requires a hypothesis, and generally means "Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected". For example, Special Relativity is exceedingly complex, especially if I try to explain it to you. Ontologically though (in actual fact…

Well, actually...

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-17.html

Re: Ruby Web Dev The Other Way

#33
post #15

Excited to see this piece - an ambitious guide to developing with Plain Old Ruby and associated tools! I ended up disappointed. The piece reads in a very partisan manner, makes questionable declamations of common Ruby tools & patterns, and throws in a lot of obnoxious asides about how bad other programmers are. Examples: "RoR is a good starting point for a young developer." Its usage encompasses just a tad more than…

There are a lot of "emotions" and personal opinion that is not wrapped with tolerant euphemisms. I don't have time to explain all POVs in details, also even after reading those books I mention - every person would have his own opinion and conclusions.

Re: Ruby Web Dev The Other Way

#34
The first few sentences of this article sold me. Because it describes to me exactly why I hate Rails, and Ember, and any other framework with a similar model. I hate Rails because Rails is Magic. And not the good (well, as good as magic can be), 0x5f3759df kind of magic either.

The kind of magic where you're given some functions to call, and some places to put your code, and if you ask why, you are told that you don't want to know, so shut up. In a non-CoC system, a lot of this magic would be exposed to the developer, so even of we didn't exactly know what was going on behind the scenes, we could at least kind of reason about it.

I hate rails because I like to be able to reason about the code that I write, the libraries I use, and what's going on behind the scenes, even if I don't know ALL the details.

Why? Because I assume that at some point, my code will break. And if I can't reason about what my app's doing, I can't fix it. And after running Ubuntu for a few years, I have long run out of patience for problems I can't fix.

Re: Ruby Web Dev The Other Way

#35

Good work! On some work projects I've gotten a lot of mileage out of breaking with the traditional Rails patterns in favor of stuff like `Operation` objects. Too bad I didn't know about Trailblazer! I also agree about Rails making excessive use of Ruby magic. Just because it's possible, doesn't mean you should do it. Regarding non-ActiveRecord models, I use Sequel[1] exclusively at work - in addition to being decided…

I haven't used Sequel by myself, but definitely, need to add a mention about it. Thanks!

Re: Ruby Web Dev The Other Way

#36

The first few sentences of this article sold me. Because it describes to me exactly why I hate Rails, and Ember, and any other framework with a similar model. I hate Rails because Rails is Magic. And not the good (well, as good as magic can be), 0x5f3759df kind of magic either. The kind of magic where you're given some functions to call, and some places to put your code, and if you ask why, you are told that you don'…

> The kind of magic where you're given some functions to call, and some places to put your code, and if you ask why, you are told that you don't want to know, so shut up.

Rails is open-source and extensively documented. I honestly cannot understand this take at all.

Re: Ruby Web Dev The Other Way

#37
post #29

begin minor rant... Occam's razor is misused in the manifesto. The author indicates that it means "Prefer simple solutions", which it doesn't. Occam's razor requires a hypothesis, and generally means "Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected". For example, Special Relativity is exceedingly complex, especially if I try to explain it to you. Ontologically though (in actual fact…

This is a pretty poor example since Special Relativity is not 'exceedingly complex' and as a theory that explains things observed in the real world it's drastically simpler than a theory postulating unobserved aliens.

Sorry... I should have been clearer. You're correct, and it is indeed why Occam's razor correctly applied would rule out the alien theory. What I meant specifically, was that its syntax is more complex, but its ontology is simpler as you describe. In other words it's the explaining part that's more complex, so it seems more complex on the surface. So if you asked the average person on the street which theory was easier to understand, I'm guessing most would say the alien theory. So when you use a description like "simpler" as the author did, you can be confused as to what is "simpler".

There's been a lot written on this subject that's hard to do justice here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simplicity/

Re: Ruby Web Dev The Other Way

#38

begin minor rant... Occam's razor is misused in the manifesto. The author indicates that it means "Prefer simple solutions", which it doesn't. Occam's razor requires a hypothesis, and generally means "Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected". For example, Special Relativity is exceedingly complex, especially if I try to explain it to you. Ontologically though (in actual fact…

Well, actually... http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-17.html

Lol... maybe you're not.

The author invited comment directly by using a scientific/philosophical principle in his story. If you mention Occam's razor as a reason your argument is correct, and you completely get that wrong, you stand to be corrected.

So if you want to sound smart by using scientific terminology you don't understand, the scientists are going to call you on it, and that's not being pedantic.

Re: Ruby Web Dev The Other Way

#39
post #2

Great effort. There's still a lot to go but you've got some great content already. I just wanted to mention gitbook.com as a resource to you. Keep it up.

Thank you. I think about writing a script to convert Jekyll MD files info https://leanpub.com/ book format to have it compiled in ebook format (+ distribution platform).

Re: Ruby Web Dev The Other Way

#40

The first few sentences of this article sold me. Because it describes to me exactly why I hate Rails, and Ember, and any other framework with a similar model. I hate Rails because Rails is Magic. And not the good (well, as good as magic can be), 0x5f3759df kind of magic either. The kind of magic where you're given some functions to call, and some places to put your code, and if you ask why, you are told that you don'…

> The kind of magic where you're given some functions to call, and some places to put your code, and if you ask why, you are told that you don't want to know, so shut up. Rails is open-source and extensively documented. I honestly cannot understand this take at all.

Okay, YES, Rails had docs, but that's the attitude I see: use this, do this, put your code here, we know best. The docs do not ENCOURAGE understanding of how Rails works, or why it is the way it is.
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