# Eric Meyer about frameworks (Rails, too) **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [May 13, 2006, 10:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/eric-meyer-about-frameworks-rails-too/60413 "2006-05-13T10:16:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Beate\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Beate\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Beate_P)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2006, 10:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/eric-meyer-about-frameworks-rails-too/60413/1 "2006-05-13T10:16:57Z")
Hi, for those of you who haven’t read: > **[Flummoxed By Frameworks](http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2006/05/08/flummoxed-by-frameworks/)** > > I just don't get all these new-fangled programming frameworks. Is something wrong with me? ““Oh”, they gush, “you should absolutely try Ruby on Rails! It’s so easy! It’s almost like writing regular English!” Which means they’re clearly on crack, because Ruby on Rails is so very different from a human-written language that the few ways in which it sort of resembles prose, assuming you look at it under a dim light through a heavily fractured fresnel lens, serve only to confuse me further.” Beate ---
**Author:** ![Beate\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Beate\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Beate_P)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2006, 2:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/eric-meyer-about-frameworks-rails-too/60413/2 "2006-05-13T14:13:36Z")
Curt H. has the best analogy to explain Rails. PHP is like a point and click camera while Rails is an advanced SLR, if you don’t know how to photograph then having a professional equipment only makes things more confusing, but if you’ve been photographing for years and know how painful it is to take professional photos with a point and click then of course your love for the SLR will be enthusiastic. This isn’t to say that life has changed at all for the point and click crowd. With all due respect to Eric Meyers, I love his work in CSS and I wish I understood it all but “big heaps of BASIC and Turbo PASCAL 4.5” does not a programmer in 2006 make. We’ve gone through a lot of effort to solve our OWN problems, we haven’t solved everybody’s yet, and maybe our excitement would lead people to believe we have. Rails is not easy and it’s not magic either, you have to put a lot of time in to learn it. The same can be said for CSS. Building web apps is incredible complex. Tim C. removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid ---
**Author:** ![Beate\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Beate\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Beate_P)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2006, 5:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/eric-meyer-about-frameworks-rails-too/60413/3 "2006-05-13T17:55:00Z")
i think the core of his problem in his own words is: “I feel like thereâ??s some very basic, fundamental, obvious thing that Iâ??m missing, but I donâ??t even have the necessary level of knowledge to frame the right question.” just pick a book and study, geesh. ---
**Author:** ![Beate\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Beate\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Beate_P)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2006, 1:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/eric-meyer-about-frameworks-rails-too/60413/4 "2006-05-14T01:44:15Z")
On 5/13/06, Beate P. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Hi, > > for those of you who haven’t read: > [Flummoxed By Frameworks – Eric’s Archived Thoughts](http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2006/05/08/flummoxed-by-frameworks/) If you’re going to point to that post, you should also mention the followup: > **[Framework Fix](http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2006/05/11/framework-fix/)** > > As it turns out, my problem was such an elementary misconception that no framework documentarian would think to address it. – Billy M. Smart Goat Web Design > **[Smart Goat](https://smartgoat.com/)** > > iOS App Development ---
**Author:** ![Beate\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Beate\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Beate_P)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2006, 9:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/eric-meyer-about-frameworks-rails-too/60413/5 "2006-05-13T21:51:06Z")
This is endemic of those who write “just enough code to be dangerous.” Now, if you were to say, “hey Eric, I just don’t grok this CSS purity stuff. I’m a reasonably good HTML programmer and even used Notepad quite a bit in my day” (paraphrasing his PHP comment), I suggest you’d be playing in his sandbox and get a very impassioned response about why _his_ area of expertise matters. I’ve been dealing with frameworks for years and the realization I came to is that there is nothing you can do using a sound, tested, robust framework that you can’t also do using lots of lines of spaghetti Basic. This is to say that if you don’t see the benefits of the framework and think you can write _all_ the code justfinethankyou, then you aren’t going to come around soon. Rails is not mass hysteria. Neither are all the other frameworks 90%+ of the professional software developers in the world rely on. There are Java frameworks, C++ frameworks, Python framworks, and you name it. Why? Because software would take far longer to build, without frameworks; it would be inherently more flawed because each new project would be essentially new code; Web 2.0 would grind to a screeching halt. Frameworks are about leveraging investment and capturing common cases in base, tested, optimized code. DRY. Of some concern is the “me too … i don’t get it either” set of responses. Is it really possible that someone would feel absolutely comfortable with the notion of memorizing all the CSS rules, cross-browser idiosyncracies, and hacky work-arounds, yet at the same time feel the learning curve on an application framework is too steep?