Ruby-On-Rails or PHP?
October 21st, 2007 by Marc UhligLet me begin with a couple of sentences about my background. My major is not CS, it’s business, my profession is online marketing, and I write code because I enjoy doing it. It helps me to think straight, so besides being fun it is also kind of a mental exercise. Of course it makes my life as online marketer way easier at the same time, because I really understand what’s going on behind the curtain, which has three major advantages:
- I know what is possible, so I can came up with a good strategy for each individual case
- I know how it is done, and sometimes it is just quicker to do it by myself than explaining somebody else what to do
- When talking to a client I don’t need to throw buzz words at them like “URL architecture” and such, I am able to explain what’s going on and why
So, until one and a half years ago I wrote all my scripts in PHP and it allowed me to accomplish anything I wanted to accomplish. Then I learned about Ruby on Rails. A lot of people I was dealing with believed that Rails will revolutionize the web, I didn’t, I thought it is nothing but a hype, but as my major is not CS I thought I might be wrong so I started to learn Rails.
In the last couple of weeks I found more and more articles where people talked about the decreasing hype of Rails, the one by Matthew Mullenweg was the first one I stumbled upon. Matt is referring to 7 reasons I switched back to PHP after 2 years on Rails by Derk Silvers. check out his reason number 7: “programming languages are like girlfriends: the new one is better because you are better” - I think this is so true, Rails kind of forces you to become a better programmer… but: you can also be a good programmer when you write your code in PHP - it’s up to you.
Regarding the believe that it is Rails that will revolutionize the web, I agree with Rami when he states that the language is irrelevant, and Matt: “Through it all, I still haven’t heard of a start-up or web service that failed or succeeded due solely to its web framework or language”. Here is another hilarious post about the fall of Rails, written by Rob Connery. Read the part where he is talking about the problems Twitter currently has, he says: “looks like Twitter is riding Rails right off a cliff”. Rob concludes his post with: “I think Rails will fade unless they get this one thing straight: It’s about you”.
And the customer? The customer simply doesn’t care about the technology, all the customer cares about is to get a working product.
I don’t want to be anal, but I’ll say it anyways: I knew it from the beginning, and it feels good to be right.
As soon as I have a little more time I’ll check out CakePHP and ZEND Framework.
Tags: Online Marketing, php, Programming, rails, ror, ruby on rails, scripting language
October 21st, 2007 at 7:05 pm
“The customer simply doesn’t care about the technology, all the customer cares about is to get a working product”
Indeed, the marketer speaks ;). So in fairness my quote was taken out context - that quote was about DHH saying “F*** You” and “I build Rails for ME”. As an OSS leader myself, I understand that it’s actually not about me - it’s about my clients, the developers. Thus the quote.
In terms of “client first” - you and I agree. Sort of…
You can’t stand before a client and tell them “we saved you money with a slower platform”, while their website crashes as they get more successful. Gravatar is the latest in this debacle. If you don’t have a scaling plan, you haven’t given your client a “working product” - you’ve given yourself a shortcut.
Perf isn’t everything… until it’s everything. The Rails guys think it’s just fine to roll the dice - I don’t. I think scaling needs to be considered from day 1.
October 22nd, 2007 at 6:28 am
Glad you didn’t fall for hype.
Ten years ago, I used to do all my programming in Perl. I absolutely loved that language, and learning it forced me to learn all sorts irrelevant “languages”. I’ve learned network programming, Windows COM, some assembly, and more. Each with its own weird syntax, and its own quirks. At the end of the day, if you can accomplish what your client is asking for, without a considerable loss of hair, you’re all set. Language zeal is a waste of time.
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:50 pm
When I finally got myself into the grove of writing and working with PHP, Ruby came out. And to tell you the truth, the demand from clients to “get it done now” didn’t enable to me to take the time to learn, read, and understand it. Especially when I knew how to accomplish what they needed in PHP without the reading to understand something different. And I couldn’t agree more than most don’t care about the framework, they just want what they need done. “Make it work” so to speak and PHP still does that nicely.
To be honest, now that time has gone by I’m glad I didn’t take the time. It didn’t become the hype and I’m believing more and more that it probably won’t be.
Thanks for the links to the articles, will have to check those out. Great post.
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:59 pm
I am still writing pages in DOS so I’m glad I did not learn PHP or ROR. I’m staying original as can be.
January 4th, 2008 at 9:09 am
“I don’t want to be anal, but I’ll say it anyways: I knew it from the beginning, and it feels good to be right.”
Ah - famous last words - please put this in a frame so you can remember it. Kind of reminds me of when I thought the internet and Java were just fads that would go away - feels so good to know I was right.
Not taking the time to learn a new language is a good thing? I have learned over a dozen new languages and have gained something from everyone of them and yes I have a family, a life, and earned a Master’s degree while working a full time job.
January 16th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
I did not say not learning a new language is a good thing, what I said is that I am not falling for the hype, everybody said Rails will revolutionize the web, well, it did not.
Still, I learned it, and I am happy that I did, and it made me write better code, so I gained something, I like learning new things, at the moment I am poking around in Erlang, but, I won’t build a business around a language, and it’s not a language that does revolutionize the web, it is the people.
So, please don’t get me wrong, learning is a good thing, and I am learning new things every day.