Rails - Aug 2005 - RE: Rails is a Hammer? (was Rails is Mainstream ?)

Thanks for all your insights.

No, I''m not recommending that all appilcations be built on Rails.  BUT,
there are some driving forces that I, as a development department of one, am
responding to :
  * VB 6 is fairly "stable", but the paradigm is so tedious to code
with, and when VB.IDE does GPF, the causes are completely mysterious.
  * .NET 2003/2005 has some good points and some trouble spots.  What I notice
most is that unit testing gui in .NET has huge holes. I''ve tried
several times and come up with different issues that stop the progress.  I also
detest the apparent "know how to ask" culture of the newsgroups.  I
want to ask a question and be naïve and still get an answer.  AND I also want to
be told RTFM... And be _ABLE_ to RTFM... Most of the time the manual is either
non-existent or does not explain anything.
  * JAVA/J2EE just blows me away.  Much like Microsoft C++ did.  I can code in
C++, but the library referencing made it completely unusable to me.
  * Library documentation. This may be the sign of my limit of technical
ability, but I find the documentation of Ruby/Rails to be far oustanding
compared to VB6, Java/J2EE, .NET, or MS C++.  Being able to grok the library or
READ the source easily is a very big need for my continued progress.


Does Rails look like a Hammer ?  Maybe.
Do all problems look like a Nail ?  Maybe.
The problem domain I''m working with is business administration and
management.
Writing a device driver in ruby would be rediculous.
Writing a development-environment backup script (backing up svn, ms sql, source
files) with .NET C++ or Java is great overkill.
Writing RTOS apps or processor-intensive apps in .rb scripts may also be the
obviously wrong decision.

Fill-out-a-form-and-report-the-results type business management apps do not
require the specialization of the above.  Is 10 seconds unacceptable for
application startup ?  Heh, my applications start up in > 10 seconds in VB. 
It is an improvement to hit a web address and get a start window in < 1
second.
Not all business applications can be designed as web apps?  Maybe.  I suppose
calculating amorization or other financials would drag as an .rb, but why not C
then ?  That is what the Ruby/Rails community seems to suggest anyway.

I am resisting the call that all problems are looking like a nail because I have
a cool hammer to use.  With the extended libraries (growing every day from what
I can tell), there are not too many problem domains that do not have a solution
in Ruby/Rails.  And with advances in web-gui (especially the javascript-based
gui widgets posted here in the past week), I see little reason to claim that
Rail is some kind of specialized mason''s hammer.  It appears to me to
be a general contractor''s toolbox full of hammer, screwdrivers, files,
chisels, hand-power tools, etc.  If I need a 3-lb blow hammer, it''s in
there.  If I need a 1500 grit wet-dry sandpaper to finesse some finish.. That
seems to be in Rails too.

So, I''ve ranted and poured some more thought into this.  This response
is tangential to the original question of wether Rails is "mainstream"
enough to be a convincing tool to use in a publicly-accessible web application
for our business.

Thanks for the discussions.  I''m looking forward to more.

Yours,


Peter J. Fitzgibbons
Applications Manager
Lakewood Homes - "The American Dream Builder"(r)
Peter.Fitzgibbons-STCS76aLmhk1y/cD6r8xzl6hYfS7NtTn@public.gmane.org
(847) 884-8800

Thanks for your thoughts, Peter. It is always good to have perspective
into the mental diliberations of developers as they consider Rails
over other solutions.

btw...did you missed your calling as a contractor?  Then again,
developers are just contractors without the tan. :''>

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
D''Andrew Thompson
http://dathompson.blogspot.com