So I finally have some time to handle a series of posts on Ruby and Ruby on Rails.
I’ve been playing with Rails for a while, at least over 1 year. I like it and I wouldn’t consider using anything else. The framework is well designed. For example, the form editing pattern is just so smart. The code looks simple, but only because the infrastructure was the result of some thoughtful debates. No other framework seems to get this right, out of the box. (In the same way programming languages love to demo the fibonacci code, yet falls apart in a real-world application)
Here are two other observations. The most popular observation is that people are just more productive in this system over any other system. This is a result of the language, the framework, and the best practices for the development environment. One personal observation is that I’m productive when changing older code in the system. The system is easy to navigate and consistent. It doesn’t take long to figure out what the intention was.
Overall, I would highly recommend this environment and will not expound any more on this. Try it out.
Also, although I’ve been productive in Rails and Ruby… I haven’t really known the language. Just recently I broke down and got the book. I know that may sound a bit odd, but the reality is that I could be productive in Rails and with Ruby in a project without really understanding Ruby. This says something about the language.
So, after doing some more generic projects in Ruby, I’ve come around to liking the language. I can be just as productive in that language as I can in Python now. It will be the first choice for any project.
Two other interesting points.
I’ve been getting a bit of flack from some people about the whole being CTO and still doing the coding thing. 🙂 IMHO, if you have a CTO that can’t code something real and useful, they are too disconnected from reality to be effective.
I’m going to get some of the code I’ve worked on available as open source. It is time to give back to the Ruby and Rails communities.