Ruby on Rails

[chris79]

Anyone using it?

I'm only doing it in my spare time, just messing around.. so far looks quite good. The hardest part was actually installing SQLite3 as it seems the newest version has a bug and only after extensive Google searches did I find you need to use a parameter to install the version previous with the package manager/installer.

[lightng]

Started using it about three years ago but found that the time I saved developing was eaten up by hosting and deployment. Have never touched it since. It is a great framework and language though.

[ghl]

What OS have you installed it on? I've only got Windows at the mo and was wondering if it plays nice on there.

[chris79]

Installed it last night on XP..

http://rubyonrails.org/download

Installed all that, then started following a book called 'Head First Rails' which talks you through it.. all good until my web server reported a database error (SQLite3 missing)..

After a long search I finally found you need to do this in the \ruby\bin dir from a command prompt:-

gem install sqlite3-ruby --version 1.2.3

If you just try the normal install (i.e. gem install sqlite3-ruby) it doesn't work for some reason ¬_¬

Anyway, day #2 of rails, just pissing around with random stuff whilst on the bench.

[chris79]

Oh yeah, I emailed my current web hosting provider to ask if they can support rails hosting, they are apparently looking into it.

[minestrone]

It is as slow as a week in the jail.

I use thoughtworks mingle for project management which uses RoR and it uses about 500 meg to run a small project on a windows server.

Just can't see it ever getting into the enterprise arena.

[jkoder]

It is as slow as a week in the jail.

I use thoughtworks mingle for project management which uses RoR and it uses about 500 meg to run a small project on a windows server.

Just can't see it ever getting into the enterprise arena.

It's not that slow, it's slow, but fast enough. It's in the PHP league. It's already made its way into the enterprises, along with many other scripting languages. They may not have a great share on their own but collectively they are making their mark. People are really just feeling them out, even though some of them have been around for as long as mainstream languages such as Java. The Java JVM is the future for scripting languages IMO. Although dynamic typed languages can't take advantages of some of the optimisations int e virtual machine, hardware is offsetting the cost of the technology.

Also, you can write slow, ram eating code in any language.

[bogeyman]

It's not that slow, it's slow, but fast enough. It's in the PHP league. It's already made its way into the enterprises, along with many other scripting languages. They may not have a great share on their own but collectively they are making their mark. People are really just feeling them out, even though some of them have been around for as long as mainstream languages such as Java. The Java JVM is the future for scripting languages IMO. Although dynamic typed languages can't take advantages of some of the optimisations int e virtual machine, hardware is offsetting the cost of the technology.

Also, you can write slow, ram eating code in any language.

Actually, PHP is pretty bloody fast compared to Java on comparable servers.

As for "Java JVM is the future for scripting languages IMO"...

Java was always 'the future' but never quite got there. It's still 'as slow as molasses in winter' even today.

Technologies like PHP, ROR, Python and ASP are eating Java's lunch in the web-app arena.

Big monolithic corporates with big bucks to waste (err... spend) can still be sold massively over-engineered Java web solutions, but I think more agile businesses tend to go with a technologies that are cheaper and easier to work with.

[minestrone]

Pull pin and throw, three..two..one..

On a similar architectures Java will hump PHP's performance because there has been considerably more spent on it's JVM. The problem always has been that java is a far more complicated platform and people who should never have been let near a junior programming job were left to architect large system. The average Java system I work on is probably about 10 times the size it should be, it's not the technologies fault that loonies were left in charge. The large leaps that were made in ORM, MVC, containers etc were all made in java and are now being picked up by other languages.

[jkoder]

Actually, PHP is pretty bloody fast compared to Java on comparable servers.

You are crazy. PHP is actually around 10x slower than Java on average.

As for "Java JVM is the future for scripting languages IMO"...

Java was always 'the future' but never quite got there. It's still 'as slow as molasses in winter' even today.

There are only a handful of mainstream languages faster than Java and in some cases even these are slower. As for Java being always being 'the future' I think it has done quite well, it is (and has been for some time) the most popular programming language in the world. Is that not a big enough achievement?

Technologies like PHP, ROR, Python and ASP are eating Java's lunch in the web-app arena.

It depends what you define as a web app. There are plenty of PHP powered blogs on the Internet but many corporations are using Java for their web based UI's. As I stated in my post there is some momentum building up for these languages, but only when you look at it collectively. I know some big players are using PHP but it's still a small amount when you compare it with Java.

Big monolithic corporates with big bucks to waste (err... spend) can still be sold massively over-engineered Java web solutions, but I think more agile businesses tend to go with a technologies that are cheaper and easier to work with.

Rubbish. People choose the best solution for the job, and for the last 13 years that has been Java in a lot of cases. This is likely because their model is written in Java. It costs nothing to program in Java, not a penny and you have can first-class everything thrown in for that price. A lot of the best frameworks are written in Java, they are usually so good they are copied or ported to other languages. These are all free. If you learn how to use Java and some of the excellent framework available you can be as productive with it as any other language.

In fact the Java model is so good that Microsoft spent billions, essentially emulating it with C# .NET. And for all their troubles they could only muster a few extras features which don't really hold a Java programmer up anyway.

There is a future for scripting languages but they are sure taking there time making any sort of major impact in the commercial world. There are more Java jobs available according to the site below than PHP, Ruby and Python combined.

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/default...d=900&lid=2618