Peter's Blog

After the short-lived Ruby on Rails Daily News theme died after three episodes I have been quiet on the subject. I have used Ruby on Rails for an Intranet application and I find I really like it. The system has a great depth of design, as if every little thing has been thought about, yet it is all done in a very simple way. Need a new static page on your website? Just create a .rhtml file for it, give the file the right name and it will be there on your site, no wiring required. Modifying your database schema? Want to add a column to a table? Create a migration that will both add the column and delete it if you change your mind. Once the migration is loaded the column is there in your mysql, sqlite or whatever database and also available in your object model.

The application I have built has made the users happy but needed what seems like a tiny amount of code. I haven't used the Ruby language much but you do seem to be able to express yourself more succinctly than you can in python, mainly due to the use of blocks.

My main reason for picking up Ruby-on-Rails apart from it being mainstream and commercial was that I can buy books about it and the Pragmatic Programmers books are very good, both "Agile Web Development with Ruby on Rails" and "Programming Ruby".

While the python web development platforms Django and Turbogears have no mature blogging packages ready (I can only find various "works in progress") Ruby on Rails has at least two, Typo and Mephisto. Typo comes with InstantRails and Mephisto appears to have a very small codebase given what it does. Both could be the basis for a CMS and I am very tempted to go this route since the Ruby-on-Rails platform is robust and well documented and the Ruby language is at least as good as Python.

Summary: Ruby on Rails is worth learning ruby for.