Ruby

[Karlos94]

 

I'm just wondering if anyone in this community knows Ruby, and if so to what extent?

I'm just wondering because it is a great, especially if you use the Rails framework. This is purely just out of curiosity because I know a few PHP developers moving onto Ruby and for more experienced developers this is becoming a trend!

I'd recommend having a look up on an article from Nettuts+: Language War: PHP vs. Ruby

Check out Ruby: http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/

And also, check out Ruby on Rails: http://rubyonrails.org/

[a_bertrand]

I installed it some times ago, did some trials, and must admit I didn't like it at all. First of all it is a bit like python and as any script language doesn't come by default with an IDE. For me this is already painful to find a right IDE and have all integrated. Without that I would not consider to move to any language today. Also, the on Rails framework do offer a few nice ideas, but working with 3 files for every single little thingies, no thanks. Now saying that PHP programmers are moving to ruby? No I doubt it. There is some people moving / trying ruby, yes, but that it is the new language of choice for sure not. Also the shared hosting providing Ruby are not as common as those providing PHP, Java or .NET. This is also a big drawback.

So overall I would personally not pick it up. I would either go for PHP or Java or .NET

[Paul Evans]

I've not had the pleasure sadly :)

[Karlos94]

@a_bertrand: Well it is all down to personal opinion really, and I for one love Ruby and how Rails operates. Also due to how easy it is to get a framework, I simply love it. I understand your view about Ruby shared hosting isn't common but when you create a project you need to think wisely about your project, I mean I have heard someone mention that created two like-for-like applications, but with a difference and that being the language. One application took 20 hours to create with PHP, the same application took 8 hours with Ruby. However, as you said about hosting Ruby is a bit more uncommon that PHP hosting and so forth.

All in all, as I said at the start and as you said at the end of your post basically.. It's a personal opinion.

[Equinox]

I've played with Ruby on rails, and the much alike cakePHP. I dislike it, the closest other than that is Metasploit in Linux, that was quite fun.

[Djkanna]

I like the syntax of Ruby, but that's about it.

[Zeggy]

I dislike Ruby's syntax :P

So I don't plan on using it privately.

If you're looking for a good ruby on rails host, http://heroku.com/ is the most popular.

[a_bertrand]

True Karlos94, development speed and specially maintenance of the code is extremely important. Now based on that, I would again say C# gains over PHP and Ruby no discussion. Why? Because it is not only the MVC pattern (which is more or less forced by Rails) which count but the overall library under and the concept (way not new) of components which helps speed up the development as well as offer a good way to maintain old sources. An example? While developing you drag drop the components in the aspx file from the toolbox, and there you configure their properties and events. Once this is done, you basically will not deal with HTML anymore as you will work with the code behind which is pure C#. That offers the path for a change of look without even actually needing to recode (think about a template system on steroid). Now components are not just labels and textbox, but can be collapsible trees, lists, or even full database editors. You don't have the needed component? Either you download and / or purchase one (there is really tons on internet free or not), or you develop it yourself. That means fixing a component will fix all the pages which are using it. Same if you improve it. If you really want to work with MVC then you can do it as well as .net do have a MVC framework too. However I strongly suggest to not use it.

Finally, what speed up a lot the development too is the environment, and VisualStudio offers a comfort that none of the other IDE have. Or at least those I tested (eclispe, komodo, zend, netbeans, etc...). Tools like a debugger (and a complete one), a database explorer, a diagram editor, and much more are all there available for you.

All those end up really speeding up things.

Now to come back to your 20 hours in PHP vs 8 hours in Ruby. Yes maybe it's the case, however which of the 2 version the person coded? And was the person an expert on both languages? Take for example I'm a good developer in C# and want to show how bad Python is, fine I code my thing in Python first taking me a week to complete as I have maybe no clues what I must do then redo it in C# in 1 hour. Does that make really a fair comparison? Nope.

To summarize it a bit, I would say you should pick the right tool for the problem and the right tool can be defined by the company you work with or by the fact you know a tool better than another or by the fact you must integrate other things during the process. For example try to generate excel reports out of Ruby... and let me know how it goes. Or if everyone else in your team work with Java then you should / must use Java too.