Rails - Oct 2005 - Unabashed self-promotion: Rails article in November SD Mag

Hi all,

Thanks partly to info gleaned here, I got a review of Ruby on Rails  
and its AJAX support into the November issue of Software Development  
magazine. Please send any kudos to my editor, flames directly to me.   
 >;-)

Thanks again for the help.

rw

On Oct 11, 2005, at 3:07 PM, Rick Wayne wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Thanks partly to info gleaned here, I got a review of Ruby on Rails 
> and its AJAX support into the November issue of Software Development 
> magazine. Please send any kudos to my editor, flames directly to me.  
> >;-)
>
> Thanks again for the help.
>
> rw
Rick,

Do you know if they will put the article online next month?

Overall I felt it to be a pretty good article but there were a couple 
of nits I had with it.  First was seeing "Asynchronous Java and XML"
as
the expansion of AJAX; that should be javascript.  There''s also a typo 
for "gems install rails", gem should be singular.  The article also 
states that Rails comes with its own web server.  That''s a bit fuzzy, 
Rails comes with hooks into webrick and webrick is really a part of 
Ruby.  That one''s a bit pedantic, I realize ;)

My biggest gripe is probably subjective, but I''ll present it here 
anyway.  Throughout the introductory section I got the impression of 
the whole "Ruby programmers are rare" (which is actually listed as 
being a con for Rails) line of FUD.  I really take issue with Ruby 
being "a language many still consider to be an upstart Python clone."
If anyone seriously thinks that, well ... they''re pretty stupid.  While
Python is a few years older, Ruby has been around for 10 years; it''s 
neither an upstart nor a clone.  The intro to the article had a strong 
feel of "beware: turbo-geeks only, ''lightweights and
codgers'' need not
apply" when I don''t think that''s the feel of Rails at
all.  Yeah, we''re
pre 1.0 and relatively new, but that shouldn''t stop the lightweights or
codgers from paying attention.  If they don''t pay attention,
they''re
liable to be left in the dust, living under a bridge with the rest of 
the out of work ASP.NET crowd (that''s my personal opinion, not a 
demonstrable fact ... yet)!  Don''t take me as being too negative or 
that I''m attacking you, though.  I make my living with Rails so I am 
passionate about both its direction and its portrayal and will offer up 
strong opinions whenever solicited ;)

OK, gripes with the intro aside, I thought the actual content of the 
article was very much worth reading, particularly for those just 
getting started or thinking about getting started.  You did a good job 
presenting some of the core philosophies of Rails development (both in 
the text and in the code) as well as demonstrating the ease of getting 
up and going with Rails/Ajax.  Don''t let my shredding of the intro 
deter you from producing more Rails content for SD.  This was the first 
issue of SD that I''d read and it was pleasant to find the Rails article
when I wasn''t expecting it to be there.  So, congrats on the article 
and keep it up, I hope there are plans for you to write more of these 
in the future with some increasingly advanced topics and techniques.

Anyone else writing for any other magazines we should know about?

-- 
Scott Barron
Lunchbox Software
http://lunchboxsoftware.com
http://lunchroom.lunchboxsoftware.com
http://rubyi.st