# Is Ruby for me?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-ruby-for-me/116878>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [October 10, 2007, 6:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-ruby-for-me/116878 "2007-10-10T18:40:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sandraqu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@sandraqu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sandraqu)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2007, 6:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-ruby-for-me/116878/1 "2007-10-10T18:40:04Z")

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Is Ruby on Rails the right framework for setting up a system that can  
successfully accomplish the following tasks:

-flexible user roles and permissions  
-automated workflows  
-robust taxonomies  
-robust search engine  
-event calendar  
-RSS capacity  
-tagging  
-member directory  
-social networking capacities, including listservs and/ or forums, the  
ability for individual members to form “groups,” group space,  
individual and group blogging, wiki capacity  
-all members should be able to contribute content to the site, subject  
to editorial approval  
-ongoing site maintenance should not require programming expertise

A Yay or nay will do. If you would, in sentence, explain your answer,  
that would be great too.

–Sandra

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**Author:** ![sandraqu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@sandraqu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sandraqu)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2007, 6:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-ruby-for-me/116878/2 "2007-10-10T18:53:47Z")

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Of course 😃

> **[Ruby on Rails](https://rubyonrails.org/)**
>
> A web-app framework that includes everything needed to create database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern.

scroll down =\> Who is already on Rails?

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**Author:** ![sandraqu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@sandraqu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sandraqu)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2007, 8:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-ruby-for-me/116878/3 "2007-10-10T20:46:23Z")

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On 10/10/07, sandraqu [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> -tagging  
> -member directory  
> -social networking capacities, including listservs and/ or forums, the  
> ability for individual members to form “groups,” group space,  
> individual and group blogging, wiki capacity  
> -all members should be able to contribute content to the site, subject  
> to editorial approval  
> -ongoing site maintenance should not require programming expertise
> 
> A Yay or nay will do. If you would, in sentence, explain your answer,  
> that would be great too.

Rails certainly could be (and has been) used to construct a site like  
that. But so could any number of other frameworks. Whether it’s the  
“right” framework would depend on other considerations.

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**Author:** ![sandraqu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@sandraqu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sandraqu)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2007, 10:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-ruby-for-me/116878/4 "2007-10-10T22:19:45Z")

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On Oct 11, 5:39 am, sandraqu [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> -member directory  
> -social networking capacities, including listservs and/ or forums, the  
> ability for individual members to form “groups,” group space,  
> individual and group blogging, wiki capacity  
> -all members should be able to contribute content to the site, subject  
> to editorial approval  
> -ongoing site maintenance should not require programming expertise
> 
> A Yay or nay will do. If you would, in sentence, explain your answer,  
> that would be great too.

Rails would be a good platform for creating all that stuff, but if you  
want a platform that allows you to just “set up” (your words) all that  
stuff, I think you’d be better off looking at a ready made extensible  
community system instead eg Drupal.

ie Rails is a platform that can use to create an online community  
system, but it isn’t itself a ready made online community system.  
Which type of platform to choose is up to you.

Unfortunately Drupal is written in PHP, but I haven’t yet come across  
a better system for all those higher level tasks (pointers welcome).  
But Drupal either includes or has plugins for all those features.

Don’t underestimate how much effort it will be to set up and maintain  
a complex community site like that though - no matter what platform  
you use.

–  
Cheers  
Anton