# Question about "lightweight" definition?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-lightweight-definition/114423>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [September 12, 2007, 3:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-lightweight-definition/114423 "2007-09-12T15:33:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![shafi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@shafi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/shafi)\
**Post date:** [September 12, 2007, 3:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-lightweight-definition/114423/1 "2007-09-12T15:33:34Z")

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why Ruby on Rails is lightweight? , and does it effect on project size  
or  
number of website users in the same time?

–  
Mohamed S.  
software engineer

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**Author:** ![shafi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@shafi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/shafi)\
**Post date:** [September 12, 2007, 10:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-lightweight-definition/114423/2 "2007-09-12T22:35:23Z")

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I’m not sure it’s fair to classify Rails as lightweight any more. It  
doesn’t have the “everything under the sun” approach of j2ee, and  
some things are faster (to write), but it takes the New Jersey  
approach\* to a number of problems such that you’ll need to write a  
bunch of code one way or another. For example: ActiveRecord is  
fairly simple if you’re mapping an object to one table, but  
associations can quickly get cumbersome. More cumbersome than XML  
based configuration files? It probably depends on what parts you  
find painful.

As a gross generalization, Rails apps will have less code, but that’s  
mostly an artifact of Ruby being terse. As another gross  
generalization, Rails apps will not perform as well as Java apps for  
equivalent operations. The argument here is that the Rails app will  
be done sooner, giving the developers more time to profile, optimize  
and scale the application.

- [The Rise of ``Worse is Better''](http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html)

-faisal

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![shafi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@shafi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/shafi)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2007, 9:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-lightweight-definition/114423/3 "2007-09-14T21:11:27Z")

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Faisal N Jawdat wrote:

> Rails apps will not perform as well as Java apps for  
> equivalent operations. The argument here is that the Rails app will  
> be done sooner, giving the developers more time to profile, optimize  
> and scale the application.

Also consider that the rise of frameworks like Rails (Django, Symfony,  
CakePHP) is largely due to the fact that servers are relatively faster  
these days so more verbose code behind the scenes (like ActiveRecord for  
ORM) is possible without noticeable lag in response time. So Rails may  
still be slower than j2ee relatively speaking, and it may not be  
lightweight (no framework as usable as those mentioned above could be),  
but it’s still fast enough to be usable and the time that it saves in  
development is enough to push it’s growth (and unless a majority of end  
users start complaining that Rails apps are comparatively slow, most  
developers will take the easy road over the  
bit-for-bit-optimized-for-speed approach)