[GLLUG] Best Web/Desktop Programming solution (...)

[Asenchi]

> *: Though I'd hesitate to bet a business on Ruby on Rails, which right
> now has hype far in excess of what it has actually proved itself on,
> which sets off my alarm bells. It might be that good, but I also see the
> possibility that a lot of the hype is coming from people who haven't
> done large scale web development before and don't realize that the
> reason it is easy is that it is somewhat limiting; I've seen some
> evidence to support this, but full disclosure, I have no direct
> experience. It's just that everybody's "why this is great" example is
> how easy it is to set up a new Rails site, not how easy it is to do this
> one thing that's really hard in other environments; again, alarm bells.
> My gut feeling is that if you're the only good programmer in the shop,
> y'all are going to be better off with Python, designed for readability,
> than Ruby, which isn't quite Perl but does tend to revel in its
> cleverness a bit.

Ok, i'll bite.

</me jumps into the flames>

I wouldn't call Basecamp a small project by any stretch of the
imagination.  And if you simply took their 'sound bites' alone, it
would be difficult to come up with any other conclusion than that
Rails is pretty beefy and production ready.

I am not sure what you mean by limiting, as Rails provides a great
framework to build web applications.  If you need to do more, Ruby
only empowers you, it doesn't hamper you.

I am a n00b programmer, and I found Python to be difficult to
understand due to some of its logic.   This is of course my opinion,
it is not a cut on Python for its strengths (yes it has many).  I have
just found Ruby in particular to make more sense and allow for
programming (anything) to be fun.  Not to mention the ease of learning
it.

As for Rails, I am working on a fairly large scale application in this
environment, and so far it has been a joy to work with.

I encourage, no matter what we say in our opinions, the original
poster to research heavily and find the tools that work for them.  It
really is a, "whats easiest for me" situation.

Thanks.
-- 
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