Hi everyone,
A quick pointer to some concise "Why Rails?" info is fine, but if
you''d like to put together a more thorough response, read on.
I''m at the beginning of a long stretch of road where I need to
convince my manager that we should use Rails here. Here''s
what''s
working against me:
* We have 3 developers. One is a PHP master.
* My manager thinks we should settle on one platform.
* Rails is new and shiny and may not be what we need.
Things working for me:
* Our PHP apps are all custom written. There is no support outside
of that one developer''s head.
* I think we should have several platforms. The right tool for the job.
* Rails is solid and has a tight community.
We do not have a standard platform here. We have PHP and Perl and and
Python and Ruby and Rails and Java (installed apps), plus a multitude
of scripts written in different shells and scripting languages. My
one Rails app is a rogue project at this point, and my manager''s not
thrilled about it. I''m hoping to ramp it up enough in the meantime
such that it creates enough value that he can''t just shut it down.
My goal is to help us standardize our platforms, and I do believe
there is space for more than one. I would not ask the PHP guy to
rewrite his apps or drop everything for Ruby and Rails. My PHP
knowledge has shrunk, however, and if I can avoid ever having to write
Perl again, I will.
I''m certain I can succeed in this goal, in that my desire is to have
the right tool for each job, not to shut down all projects that don''t
conform to a new standard. As it stands, the PHP apps, while written
in a framework, are written in a CUSTOM framework with no outside
documentation. I view this as terribly bad, whether it''s PHP or not.
Any thoughts? I don''t want to be the company Rails-fanboy, I just
want to have Rails be accepted as a solid platform.
Thanks!
Sean
