Reinforcements, please?

Rails
1

Hi there… I’m a Ruby N., and I’m starting to delve into Ruby on
Rails.
Anyway, my dear mother (I’m 30 years old, by the way, you think I’d be
old
enough to decide which language I want to learn) for whatever reason is
convinced that I should do PHP and not Rails. Quite frankly, I’m sure
that
PHP is great, and I use stuff that has PHP and I can hack it, but I want
to
learn RoR. (Again, 30 years old here.) :slight_smile:

In any case, my mother does a lot of SEO and has affiliate sites… she
is
convinced that Ruby can’t do that type of stuff and has challenged me to
show her any dynamic sites done in Ruby on Rails, and any affiliate or
eCommerce sites. As I’d quite rather spend my time learning RoR, as
opposed
to scouring the web for sites to justify my choices (again, 30 years old
here!) :slight_smile: I was wondering if any of you RoR peeps would know of sites
that I
could use as proof. LOL. I can’t believe I’m even posting this
request,
but it’s in absolute desperation. :slight_smile:

THANKS so much.

–
Samantha

http://www.babygeek.org/

“Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all
things are at risk.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

2

Samantha wrote:

Hi there… I’m a Ruby N., and I’m starting to delve into Ruby on
Rails.
Anyway, my dear mother (I’m 30 years old, by the way, you think I’d be old
enough to decide which language I want to learn) for whatever reason is
convinced that I should do PHP and not Rails. Quite frankly, I’m sure
that
PHP is great, and I use stuff that has PHP and I can hack it, but I want
to
learn RoR. (Again, 30 years old here.) :slight_smile:

I’m older than you.

Show her this diagram:

http://lukewelling.com/2006/08/03/java-programmers-are-the-erotic-furries-of-programming/

http://tinyurl.com/jl26t

If Rails were on that “Programmer Hierarchy” chart, it would be above
Ruby.
(SPARKS, OCaml, and Fortran would be above, too, but for different
reasons.)

In any case, my mother does a lot of SEO and has affiliate sites… she is
convinced that Ruby can’t do that type of stuff and has challenged me to
show her any dynamic sites done in Ruby on Rails

Honey chile, I think we’d be hard-pressed to find a static site done
with
Rails!

, and any affiliate or
eCommerce sites. As I’d quite rather spend my time learning RoR, as
opposed
to scouring the web for sites to justify my choices (again, 30 years old
here!) :slight_smile: I was wondering if any of you RoR peeps would know of sites that
I
could use as proof. LOL. I can’t believe I’m even posting this request,
but it’s in absolute desperation. :slight_smile:

Any of us responders on this mailing list could write any one of the
features your mother pointed to in less time than the fastest PHP
programmer
could.

Now Google for the thousands of blog entries by former PHP coders, with
years of experience using and advocating PHP, who have discovered RoR
and
then blogged, “What was I THINKING???”

–
Phlip
Redirecting... ← NOT a blog!!!

3

RoR > PHP

A little info on SEO

And as far as eCommerce, here is a company lead by Steve Case (co-
founder of AOL)

Your mother needs to drink the Ruby colored Kool-Aid

ps. I’m 36, and a recovering PHP user, thanks to Ruby

4

Samantha wrote:

SEO

/Pragmatic Ajax/ by Gehtland, Galbraith, & Almaer, has a very good
segment
about usability.

Seeking to prevent the coming wave of Ajax Abuse, the authors point out
that
a site must be bookmarkable.

Rails helps with exemplary support for “Pretty URIs”. Not only can you
write
legible source code, like ‘Order.has_many :line_items’, you can also
produce
legible URIs, such as http://mysite.com/order/42 . If you bookmark that
URI
(and if the engineers made no mistakes), you can return to that bookmark
easily.

Ajax provides the opportunity to break Pretty URIs, because you can
dynamically drive a page into a state that can’t be bookmarked.
/Pragmatic
Ajax/ recommends remembering bookmarking, and establishing usability
guidelines for each site that expose relevant states for bookmarking.
Google
Maps, for example, has a “Link to this page” feature that stores a
snapshot
of any state.

Is your mother afraid that Ajax abuse will make pages un-book-markable,
and
hence hard to optimize in search engines? With one hand Rails giveth and
with the other taketh away!

(If this wasn’t, in fact, your mother’s beef, don’t explain it to her
:wink:

–
Phlip
Redirecting... ← NOT a blog!!!

5

Hi –

On Thu, 8 Feb 2007, Samantha wrote:

http://lukewelling.com/2006/08/03/java-programmers-are-the-erotic-fur…

http://tinyurl.com/jl26t

If Rails were on that “Programmer Hierarchy” chart, it would be above Ruby.
(SPARKS, OCaml, and Fortran would be above, too, but for different reasons.)

I will do just that. From everything I’ve read and grasped, Ruby on
Rails DOES dynamic sites.

Definitely. I’d put in a minor plea for ignoring the chart; it
represents Ruby, implicitly but unequivocally, as a “web language”,
and generally credits Ruby programmers with, I don’t know, some kind
of superiority complex which is very far from anything I’ve observed
in 6.25 years of Ruby programming. (I’m actually more worried about
the persistent Ruby inferiority complex.) But anyway – yes, dynamic,
definitely! And Rails is a bunch of Ruby libraries, on top of which
you write Ruby code; so Rails programmers are Ruby programmers, and
Rails is dynamic too. I know that a static website could be served up
by a dynamic language… but that’s definitely not what happens in the
typical case with Rails :slight_smile:

David

–
Q. What is THE Ruby book for Rails developers?
A. RUBY FOR RAILS by David A. Black (http://www.manning.com/black)
(See what readers are saying! http://www.rubypal.com/r4rrevs.pdf)
Q. Where can I get Ruby/Rails on-site training, consulting, coaching?
A. Ruby Power and Light, LLC (http://www.rubypal.com)

6

dblack wrote:

I will do just that. From everything I’ve read and grasped, Ruby on
Rails DOES dynamic sites.

Definitely. I’d put in a minor plea for ignoring the chart; it
represents Ruby, implicitly but unequivocally, as a “web language”,

By making it a peer of C, and superior to C++?

Rails is dynamic too. I know that a static website could be served up
by a dynamic language… but that’s definitely not what happens in the
typical case with Rails :slight_smile:

And if you need a static site, you use Rails, rather trivially, as a
first-class content manager, and then you turn on page caching. Voila: A
static site…

–
Phlip
Redirecting... ← NOT a blog!!!

7

On Feb 7, 8:54 pm, “Phlip” [email protected] wrote:

I’m older than you.

Heehee… :slight_smile:

Show her this diagram:

http://lukewelling.com/2006/08/03/java-programmers-are-the-erotic-fur…

http://tinyurl.com/jl26t

If Rails were on that “Programmer Hierarchy” chart, it would be above Ruby.
(SPARKS, OCaml, and Fortran would be above, too, but for different reasons.)

I will do just that. From everything I’ve read and grasped, Ruby on
Rails DOES dynamic sites.

Honey chile, I think we’d be hard-pressed to find a static site done with
Rails!

THANK you.

Any of us responders on this mailing list could write any one of the
features your mother pointed to in less time than the fastest PHP programmer
could.

And that’s exactly why I came here. :slight_smile:

Now Google for the thousands of blog entries by former PHP coders, with
years of experience using and advocating PHP, who have discovered RoR and
then blogged, “What was I THINKING???”

Yup, I’ve seen that stuff, which is exactly why I figured that RoR is
the more elegant and wise route to go.

Thanks, Philip! I appreciate it!!

8

On Feb 7, 9:20 pm, “Phlip” [email protected] wrote:

legible source code, like ‘Order.has_many :line_items’, you can also produce

Is your mother afraid that Ajax abuse will make pages un-book-markable, and
hence hard to optimize in search engines? With one hand Rails giveth and
with the other taketh away!

(If this wasn’t, in fact, your mother’s beef, don’t explain it to her :wink:

–
Phlip
Redirecting... ← NOT a blog!!!

Taking a break from watching Lost…I don’t think it’s about
‘Bookmarkability,’ but more because ‘PHP is the thing that’s most
known and most used.’ My mom, used to program back in the day (read:
COBOL, I spent my preschool years coloring on punchcards) and she got
back into computing with web design sometime around '00, eventually
progressing into SEO. I’m not quite sure of her logic, but she
doesn’t think that Rails can do what PHP does, as far as I can
gather. “Show me one affiliate marketing site that is done in Ruby.
In fact, show me one dynamic site that is done in Ruby.” I went over
to the RoR homepage, and sent her a few examples of “who’s on ruby”
and then ran off to watch TV.

Sorry for the brief post… Lost is back on. :slight_smile:

Samantha

9

On Feb 7, 10:41 pm, “BenJamin Prater” [email protected] wrote:

Nobody is really answering your question.

If you aren’t familiar with PHP or worse, web programming in general
– Rails wouldn’t be my first recommendation to anyone.

I am familiar with PHP, I am familiar with web design and programming
logic. I’ve been studying Ruby for several months and will eventually
go to Rails.

There is too much magic, too much OOP, too many clever bits – that it
may end up hurting you when you try to push beyond the basics that
you’ll find in tutorials and ruby/rails books.

I am comfortable with OOP. While I’m comfortable with procedural
programming, I also grok OOP.

Also, if you are creating “clever hacks” to help your mother in SEO
optimization – PHP might be a better option. It can swoop in, allow
you to tweak a page – and be gone.

Nope, I’m not doing that. She wants me to do that, which I may
eventually do, but when I say I can hack stuff, I can go through code,
change things, and make it do what I want.

Rails is a huge framework and you can’t easily squeeze into a 2-liner
on your mom’s site.

Right, I’m not wanting to do much on my mom’s site(s). It is my goal
to become a programmer, which I know takes time and effort. I’d just
rather focus on Rails as opposed to PHP. Ruby excites me; PHP does
not.

I program in both PHP and Ruby – both have their place. Obviously, if
you are committing time to learning – you can’t easily gulp down
both. But the things that you learn in PHP will be useful when you
move to Rails.

Ben

Thanks for your input, Ben!

Sorry to be brief… coming upstairs to check on things during
commercial breaks.

Samantha

10

Nobody is really answering your question.

If you aren’t familiar with PHP or worse, web programming in general
– Rails wouldn’t be my first recommendation to anyone.

There is too much magic, too much OOP, too many clever bits – that it
may end up hurting you when you try to push beyond the basics that
you’ll find in tutorials and ruby/rails books.

Also, if you are creating “clever hacks” to help your mother in SEO
optimization – PHP might be a better option. It can swoop in, allow
you to tweak a page – and be gone.

Rails is a huge framework and you can’t easily squeeze into a 2-liner
on your mom’s site.

I program in both PHP and Ruby – both have their place. Obviously, if
you are committing time to learning – you can’t easily gulp down
both. But the things that you learn in PHP will be useful when you
move to Rails.

Ben

11

Doing it stealth. Just learn it, do it, and show it. She will be
impressed. I was impressed.

12

On 2/7/07, Samantha [email protected] wrote:

In fact, show me one dynamic site that is done in Ruby." I went over
to the RoR homepage, and sent her a few examples of “who’s on ruby”
and then ran off to watch TV.

It’s all about what you want to do. If you want to make a product that
can
be installed on the most sites possible, then PHP might be for you since
there are so many hosting providers that offer it. However I think that
if
you learn Ruby and Rails you’ll have much more fun developing sites or
at
least I do.

Affiliate marketing is not the only thing dynamic on the web. As you
mentioned almost every RoR site out there is dynamic many doing far more
than link tracking and branding. So while yes, there is much PHP code
out
there for doing things like affiliate marketing and such, you can easily
do
all of that in Rails without breaking a sweat. And when you are done, it
can
be something you can build more features on over time. That’s not true
of
some PHP code out there.

It’s a bit of a different mind set. If you want quick and dirty, then
maybe
PHP is for you, but if you want to build something that has a MVC
architecture, is test driven, extensible, and fun to work with, I would
recommend Ruby and Rails. Now everyone has their own opinion and there
are
exceptions to every rule. You can build well structured apps in most any
language… its just a whole lot easier in some.

So its really about what you are wanting to do. If you are in doubt,
then
try both and see which you like better. Rails got the developer.com web
framework of the year again this year (so that might tell you
something). If
you give them both a shot, I believe you’ll see why the demand for Ruby
and
Rails is continually increasing each year.

Jeff

13

Samantha wrote:

I am comfortable with OOP. While I’m comfortable with procedural
programming, I also grok OOP.

Ah, then you are familiar with closures, continuations, and duck-typing.
Everyone here is whether they know it or not. Rails did all those things
for
us, so we can just enjoy the incredible extensibility they provide,
without
bothering to wonder how Rails does it.

Sorry to be brief… coming upstairs to check on things during
commercial breaks.

TV? That is so Last Millenium!

–
Phlip
Redirecting... ← NOT a blog!!!

14

Hi –

On Wed, 7 Feb 2007, Phlip wrote:

dblack wrote:

I will do just that. From everything I’ve read and grasped, Ruby on
Rails DOES dynamic sites.

Definitely. I’d put in a minor plea for ignoring the chart; it
represents Ruby, implicitly but unequivocally, as a “web language”,

By making it a peer of C, and superior to C++?

No, by putting a comment at the bottom about how Ruby programmers
don’t acknowledge the existence of any non-web language, or words to
that effect.

David

–
Q. What is THE Ruby book for Rails developers?
A. RUBY FOR RAILS by David A. Black (http://www.manning.com/black)
(See what readers are saying! http://www.rubypal.com/r4rrevs.pdf)
Q. Where can I get Ruby/Rails on-site training, consulting, coaching?
A. Ruby Power and Light, LLC (http://www.rubypal.com)

15

Samantha wrote:

COBOL, I spent my preschool years coloring on punchcards)

Me and my brother once made a humongous card castle in our living room
out
of the mini-cards. :wink:

“Show me one affiliate marketing site that is done in Ruby.
In fact, show me one dynamic site that is done in Ruby.”

That’s silly. Affiliate marketing is just a sign-up sheet and a couple
database tables. It’s the equivalent of the tutorial sites in the Agile
Web
Development book.

Ask her “If all the PHP programmers just … jumped off a cliff, would
you?”

Naaww, read this:
"Ruby on Rails at Amazon
"I had a great time talking about Ruby on Rails at the annual Amazon
Developers Conference in Seattle this week. I was surprised to learn how
many departments inside Amazon are already using Rails for various
systems
and delighted by the open-minded responses from those that weren’t
already
doing Rails.

“Amazon has historically been mostly a Perl-shop at the front end, so
Ruby
is not that big of a leap. Especially not for the groups that are
interested
in getting better object-oriented techniques and patterns like MVC
going.
And with the low confidence in Perl 6 ever panning out, I certainly felt
an
interest in exploring alternatives.”

http://www.loudthinking.com/arc/000558.html

–
Phlip
Redirecting... ← NOT a blog!!!

16

Thanks for all the great responses. :slight_smile:

I think I have some ‘ammo’ now.

Thanks so much.

(and, I think it’s that she wants me to modify things written in PHP.
I just don’t find all that ‘fun’ like I do Ruby.)

Thanks again,
Samantha

17

Samantha wrote:

(and, I think it’s that she wants me to modify things written in PHP.
I just don’t find all that ‘fun’ like I do Ruby.)

You will learn (unlike the author of the “Programmers Hierarchy”) that
Ruby was invented first, was invented with the primary goal of being
fun and easy to use, and that its inventors and early adopters never
even foresaw Rails. That’s a slightly different situation from a
language grown to support websites directly.

However, yes, Rails programmers do tend to look down on all other web
development. And if you had seen the market share for ASP.NET, you
should wonder why MS won’t just give up…

–
Phlip
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ZeekLand ← NOT a blog!!

18

Russell N. wrote:

Also, @Phlip, why is using Rails as a content manager trivial?

Because I have no experience with any other kind of
CMS except Wikis, and as an engineer I like funky markup
syntax…

–
Phlip
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ZeekLand ← NOT a blog!!

19

Phlip wrote:

You will learn (unlike the author of the “Programmers Hierarchy”) that
Ruby was invented first,

According to Wikipedia, PHP was released in 1994 and Ruby was released
in 1995.

Not that I think age is necessarily a good way to rank programming
languages, but for practical purposes, is probably as valuable as an
annecdotal, humorous ranking of relative programmer arrogance.

20

Wombat wrote:

Phlip wrote:

Ruby was invented first,

According to Wikipedia, PHP was released in 1994 and Ruby was released
in 1995.

I meant Ruby was invented first, long before Rails, without Rails as a
specific goal.

I know almost nothing about PHP - that won’t stop me from trash-
talking it - yet I had the impression it grew out of a Perl customized
for Webby things. So its language was created explicitly to satisfy a
framework.

Not that I think age is necessarily a good way to rank programming
languages, but for practical purposes, is probably as valuable as an
annecdotal, humorous ranking of relative programmer arrogance.

I remember using Wyse 100 terminals and vi. :slight_smile:

–
Phlip