Rails Rails is the best way to get things out fast, and makes it easy to keep code clean and maintainable. It takes a bit to learn up front, but after that everything becomes easier. This is an important consideration - you can't just use it a bit, you really need to become a rails developer or it will not help you. Rails has a thriving ecosystem of gems to get pretty much anything done from testing to facebook integration, and the rails community is great. * Start learning rails here - the Try Ruby and Rails for Zombies courses are free and will get you started: http://www.codeschool.com/ * Here's the a databse of gems, grouped by function and ranked by popularity which is obtained from github stats: https://www.ruby-toolbox.com/
Rails developers typically have a strong UI and UX focus and are at the cutting edge of CSS3, HTML5, javascript, etc. The Sydney Rails user group is fantastic and there are 50+ people at the meeting every month. The Australian community is very strong, with rails camps booking out within hours. They run a few camps each year with ~200-300 people there. Rails has set CoffeeScript as the default browser side language as of the most recent version, but you can still use traditionally javascript if you have your head in the sand ;-) If you want to use rails. you need to be on a Mac, or at least Linux. The basics will work on Windows, but I strongly advise against using Windows even to get started. Rails developers are in short supply, but they build the nicest looking sites. Django Django is faster to pick up, but doesn't have such a great ecosystem behind it. It's a better choice if you're a python user who wants to knock out a web site quickly, as opposed to being a web developer as your focus. Node.js As Nigel mentioned Node.js is gaining popularity. It will probably be the next big thing, but for now, doesn't have the ecosystem around it. On 13 November 2011 12:04, simran <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi All, > A friend of mine who owns a design company in sydney is looking at getting > deeper into the value chain. > It is currently a small startup firm (just grew from 3-7 in the last 4 weeks > though) - and they use a lot of wordpress for putting up sites. > He is interested in moving up the value chain into a little bit of > development... most design jobs he has done are in the $0-10k range, but is > also interested in taking on development work in the $10-$30k range, so it's > not building your next site that will get a billion visitors, but sites with > some custom functionality and reasonable usership! > There is some PHP knowledge inhouse as a result of the use of wordpress. > He asked me for recommendations on what he should use as a framework to > start some development - and i said i'd ask the startup community on what > they are using and what is popular... so here goes... > What frameworks are people using out there? and maybe a one line pro/con? > I'm from the perl era, and would have ordinarily recommended perl / mod_perl > / postgres / Template Toolkit and the likes, but that's my bias based on > familiarity... i'm sure there are easier more rapid development frameworks > out there (perhaps some ruby on rails?) > Love to hear from you on what you use, what you would recommend and how you > find it? > simran. > ps: traditionally i am personally biased against PHP/ASP type stuff because > it makes it "too easy" to mix business and presentation logic! > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach > Australia mailing list. Vist http://siliconbeachaustralia.org for more > > Forum rules > 1) No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself. > 2) No jobs postings. You can use http://siliconbeachaustralia.org/jobs > > > To post to this group, send email to > [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. Vist http://siliconbeachaustralia.org for more Forum rules 1) No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself. 2) No jobs postings. You can use http://siliconbeachaustralia.org/jobs To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en
