I thought it would be appropriate in the thread to repost my old post. >>>
There is also pretty long discussion regarding RoR on TSS: http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=37121 Let me post here few excerpts from the discussion: +++++++++++++++++++++++++ Bruce Tate : For at least one class of applications, web-based apps on a relational database where you control your own schema, you'd be crazy not to consider Rails. <<< +++++++++++++++++++++++++ Me: I would say that for this and all other types of web applications it would be crazy not to consider DreamWeaver + Tapestry+ (Spring|HiveMind)+ Hibernate+ (Eclipse+Spindle|IntellijIDEA) combo. DW allows creating entire UI for the application in the DW and present/discuss/change it with customers! â before anything else is done â enormous time saver. Tapestry allows using the DW output for development ( VERY noticeable difference from PHP/JSP when developers have to redo everything based on designers input) Tapestry allows using DW for maintaining page and component templates (wow!). (Spring|HiveMind) â does the plumbing Hibernate â takes care of your database schema if we own the schema or allows us to play nicely with whatever schema is forced on us. (Eclise+Spindle|IntellijIDEA) â enormously help with code creation and navigation â things which do not exist in the world of RoR. +++++++++++++++++++++++++ Bruce Tate about RoR shortcomings: - No hard core ORM (but that's changing.) - No distributed two phased commit. - Poor internationalization, but that's changing. - Less community - No credible JVM implementation (but that's changing rapidly). - Fewer IDE with less refactoring support. - Fewer open source projects - Not as much commercial backing - Not as many jobs - Tougher sell politically +++++++++++++++++++++++++ Personally I see no reasons to worry about RoR yet. Personally I have found Neal Ford's talk about Domain Specific Languages and Language Workbenches to much more interesting. I am convinced that DSL + LW is the Next Big Thing that will displace MDA and RoR toys into tiny niches. By the way Neal sees RoR as a kind of DSL implementation, which is a bit different from seemingly prevailing view of RoR as a library/wizard type approach. http://www.martinfowler.com/articles/languageWorkbench.html Konstantin Ignatyev PS: If this is a typical day on planet earth, humans will add fifteen million tons of carbon to the atmosphere, destroy 115 square miles of tropical rainforest, create seventy-two miles of desert, eliminate between forty to one hundred species, erode seventy-one million tons of topsoil, add 2,700 tons of CFCs to the stratosphere, and increase their population by 263,000 Bowers, C.A. The Culture of Denial: Why the Environmental Movement Needs a Strategy for Reforming Universities and Public Schools. New York: State University of New York Press, 1997: (4) (5) (p.206)
