Ruby On Rails Fans: Go &quo...

What annoyed me with the CD Baby story was that he was clearly trying to do something that Rails simply wasn't designed to do in the first place. For certain things, Rails is great (I've been writing a few sites in Rails for the past couple of years), but only when it's a specific kind of site. PHP is great as a general purpose language, and you can write great PHP, but you can also write really horrid PHP too (did you see any of the leaked Facebook code?!). Rails makes it harder to write bad code imho, there's more resistance from the language.

That said, a good coder will write good code whether it's in PHP, Rails or any other language. The problem is people seeing Rails as a fix for everything, when it isn't. It just does one particular class of site very well.

I'd use Rails when it's a better fit for what I'm doing than PHP.

To me, it's all about using the right tools for the job in hand. If what you're writing fits Rails' target market, it's really, really easy to write the application. Worrying about database connection strings? Let ActiveRecord deal with it. MVC separation? Built-in. Really readable code? Sure!

Don't get me wrong, PHP is great as a general-purpose language and while it can be turned into something as rich as Rails when used for MVC-type apps, it's nowhere near as nice as typing:

rails MyProject
cd MyProject
./script/server

and being good to go.

That said, if I was writing a web app where Rails' MVC style wasn't suitable, then PHP would be a very strong contender.

Turning your question on its head, other than sticking with a language you already know, what is one good reason to use a general-purpose language like PHP when a tailored language like Rails is a better fit?

I think the problem CD Baby had was they didn't really understand what they wanted at the offset. They fell in love with Rails, but rather than stop and think which language would be best to use, they blindly continued with Rails without understanding its limitations. Within its niche, I've not seen anything as straightforward and blindingly obvious to use as Rails. The problem comes when Rails is used outside of this niche.

"I agree, but I have to disagree that Ruby is tailored and PHP isn't."

I don't think I mentioned Ruby! I'm specifically talking about the Rails framework.

"Comparing PHP to Ruby on Rails in terms of easiness and built in MVC is unfair :-)"

But that's the comparison that people are making! The fact that Rails is all there, all set up and integrated and ready-to-use means that 15 seconds after installing it all, you're up and running. 15 minutes later you can have the first revision of your software up and running (I'm sure you've seen the 15-minute weblog in Rails). Of course it's unrealistic to think it's anywhere near ready for production, but the things you get to leave out (SQL setup, most configuration, etc.) mean you can concentrate on writing the app and not tweaking the environment (that comes later, when your rails app becomes as popular as facebook and everything starts to fall to its knees!).

"Anyhow, I miss you, how have you been? What's new? Any near visits to the region?"

Likewise! Things are good here. I'm learning to fly at the moment, which is great fun, but drains the bank balance like nothing else!

About the closest I've been since Aleppo was a potential visit to Azerbaijan for work, which fell through. I'd love to be back in region sometime soon though. Know any good upcoming security conferences in the region that need speakers? Are you going to be anywhere near the UK any time soon?