Ben, It's almost starting to sound scary...
Although i'm a big advocate of getting a kick-start from someone who really knows what they are doing, your feedback on that it's hard to install, [most] tutorials are out of date and fail etc, is giving me the impression that perhaps people are abandoning RoR for other frameworks and hence so much out of date data is out there... The last i played with it about 5 years ago (albeit for only 1 day!), it was very simple to install, produced a beautiful CRUD site in a few hours, and looked relatively easy... 5 years ago is a long long long time though! One that i had forgotten but was mentioned earlier was GWT... and i have heard mummers of smartGWT - not sure what the difference is yet...but i suspect i'll find out soon, and looks like another framework worth playing with... simran. On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 2:59 PM, Ben Sand <[email protected]> wrote: > If you build a simple site in rails, without an experienced dev on > hand you'll probably hate it. > > I few years back I tried building a site in rails, failed miserably > after many attempts and then went to use django. A year later I was > working with someone who insisted on rails and I used it with their > guidance. Having someone knowledgeable to help made all the difference > and I now swear by rails instead of swearing at it. > > You really can't have just a taste of rails, it's incredibly fast > moving and installing it is quite difficult. Most tutorials are out of > date and fail, leaving you frustrated. It takes a while to know where > the good ones are and what you can rely on. The only reliable way to > begin is to have someone help you at the start. > > Rails is huge. It's strength is the ecosystem, the community, and how > maintainable the codebase is even for a large complext site. It does > not offer a friendly beginning - the first 6 months of use you're > typically still figuring things out. I've heard from then until 3 > years in, you know enough to be a danger to yourself and others. I'm > only 2 years in and I think I'm doing ok. I've trained up 7 others in > that time as well and we've got a lot of cool stuff done, thanks to > all the gems. > > On 13 November 2011 14:48, simran <[email protected]> wrote: > > Thankyou Ishwor, Nigel and Ben... fantastic pointers from all of you. > > Undoubtedly more people will respond... the choice seems tough, the > > preferences are definitely based on what "one already knows", but Ben, as > > you pointed out, the community for RoR is possibly more mature than for > > other frameworks. > > I'm thinking it's worth doing a basic site in two or three of the > frameworks > > suggested, and then finding where the comfort zone lies... > > Node.js is tempting, especially when people are going from front-end to > > back-end as javascript is something they have usually toyed with for > > frontend stuff... and so the learning curve is quicker... > > Interesting choices... still a lot of confusion... but now the confusion > > lies in the choice between a few frameworks, rather than thousands of > them > > :) > > simran. > > > > On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 2:39 PM, Ben Sand <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > >> 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. 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