[OT] Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday

[Alan Golub]

Actually, this is all quite fascinating to me, Dan. I've been looking at
Java for the last few months, exploring several of the many frameworks that
attempt to simplify the developer's job in designing and building
Servlet/JSP database applications (struts, tapestry, hibernate, spring --
man, I tell you, it's overwhelming!).

In the course of playing around with these frameworks, jumping through the
many configuration/mapping hoops, I came across Rails. Now, I looked at Ruby
several years ago, and came away with much the same impression you did -- it
seemed like too much work to get used to the syntax, which never looked
nearly as clean to me as Python, or even Java for that matter. As you
suggest, it had a little too much of Perl's idiosyncratic use of symbol
characters in it for my taste. It could be downright ugly.

But after reading earlier this week about the publication of a new O'Reilly
book on Rails, I jumped over to rubyonrails.com for more info. Intrigued, I
next found a site detailing how to set everything up on OS X, my platform of
choice for all things these days. Here's the link:

http://www.tonyarnold.com/articles/2005/08/10/rolling-with-ruby-on-rails-on-
mac-os-x-tiger-for-beginners

Next, I ran through an excellent 2-part tutorial on the O'Reilly site:

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/01/20/rails.html

And a follow-up walk-through of the benefits of Ajax on Rails:

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/09/rails_ajax.html

I've got to say, the experience was like a hundred light bulbs popping at
once over my head (similar, in fact, to the experience of playing around
with Revolution for the first time a few years back). Hot on the heels of
dorking around with the way-too-long-and complicated (and potentially
error-prone) process of setting up a proper Java web app for development and
deployment, and navigating the ins-and-outs of utilizing the best and most
useful features of multiple frameworks, Rails was an instant pleasure.

Yes, it's new and relatively untested (at least as far as I know). Yes, it
requires you to work with Ruby, which may turn off some more than others.
But the speed and simplicity of getting going is so alluring, I'm convinced
that it's worth exploring a bit more. Ruby's no Transcript, that's for sure,
but as you suggest, Rails and Rev aren't really playing in the same
ballpark. 

ALAN S. GOLUB, ESQ.
Golub & Isabel, P.C.
16 Furler Street
P.O. Box 437
Totowa, NJ 07511-0437
(T)  973-785-4100 Ext. 103
(F)  973-785-4477
(E)  ASGolub at golub-isabel.com
(W)  www.golub-isabel.com




> 
> On Aug 12, 2005, at 12:56 AM, Rodney Somerstein wrote:
> 
>> Ruby on Rails looks to be a tremendously effective approach to
>> create Ajax (Asychronous JavaScript and XML) applications. For the
>> best known application using Ajax, take a look at Google maps if
>> you haven't seen it. This is an exciting time of possibilities when
>> you think of what kinds of applications we are likely to start
>> seeing on the Web. We will finally start seeing more Web
>> applications that feel like standalone apps without requiring a
>> player of some sort to be embedded in the browser. The downside
>> right now is that Ruby on Rails does require using Ruby. I suspect
>> Python will catch up soon if it hasn't already. I don't know
>> whether Revolution can already effectively play in this environment
>> or not.
>> 
> 
> I haven't had time yet to look deeply at the issue of how Rev might
> participate in Ajax or, alternatively, facilitate the creation of
> Ajax-like applications. To do so, Rev would need to be able to embed
> itself somehow into the Web fabric and as far as I know -- always
> subject to the limitation of my own knowledge base -- Rev cannot do
> that and is not really designed to do so. I *think* that means that
> next-gen Web apps built on the Ajax model will not be a Rev
> playground. The XMLHTTPRequest command in JavaScript seems to be the
> singular glue that holds Ajax together, and Rev can certainly emulate
> that behavior but not, it seems to me, in a way that allows Web page
> embedding. Without a plugin or some other architectural change to the
> Rev core, building Web pages that are truly dynamic apps will have to
> be the province of tools like JavaScript/XML, Ruby and probably
> Python. (I'll mail you offlist about Python support since I suspect
> there's only three of us here who care.)
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Dan Shafer, Revolution Consultant and Author
> http://www.shafermedia.com
> Get my book, "Revolution: Software at the Speed of Thought"
>  From http://www.revolutionpros.com, Click "My Stuff"