# Ruby On Rails Vs. J2EE OpenSource vs. Apple WebObjects etc **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [August 9, 2007, 6:22am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-on-rails-vs-j2ee-opensource-vs-apple-webobjects-etc/111615 "2007-08-09T06:22:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ralphmiller](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@Ralphmiller](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ralphmiller)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2007, 6:22am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-on-rails-vs-j2ee-opensource-vs-apple-webobjects-etc/111615/1 "2007-08-09T06:22:00Z")
Hello Gurus: New to Ruby/Rails. We are a startup and getting ready to start developing a DB driven business application. We have a Apple hardware with MAC OS with Ruby, WebObjects, JBoss, Hibernate and other opensource tools and technologies available and ready to use. We are debading on platform of choice and hence my posting here. Our application is no different from other application with customers, users, Orders, products, etc… Performance, scalability, availability and reliability are certainly key to our project. We are in the process of DB selection in terms of MySQL vs. Oracle Express Edition. One final question about availability of experienced resources for Ruby on Rails… Thanks ---
**Author:** ![Ralphmiller](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@Ralphmiller](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ralphmiller)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2007, 5:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-on-rails-vs-j2ee-opensource-vs-apple-webobjects-etc/111615/2 "2007-08-09T17:00:15Z")
Any Suggestions on this? ---
**Author:** ![Ralphmiller](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@Ralphmiller](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ralphmiller)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2007, 6:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-on-rails-vs-j2ee-opensource-vs-apple-webobjects-etc/111615/3 "2007-08-09T18:13:13Z")
Ralphmiller wrote: > Any Suggestions on this? ooOOooH! So many information! 🙂 [http://rubythis.blogspot.com/2006/12/justify-your-choice-of-ruby-on-rails.html](http://rubythis.blogspot.com/2006/12/justify-your-choice-of-ruby-on-rails.html) Cheers! ---
**Author:** ![Ralphmiller](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@Ralphmiller](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ralphmiller)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2007, 6:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-on-rails-vs-j2ee-opensource-vs-apple-webobjects-etc/111615/4 "2007-08-09T18:20:52Z")
Ralphmiller wrote: > Any Suggestions on this? Ralph, I am sure most of us would like to help out if we could but the question is a little too general. Everything you mentioned is viable in it’s own right and if your problem domain is “no different from other applications” then it doesn’t really matter what you choose. The decision should be based on what type of experience you, your developers, your support staff have with said technologies. Having said all that, I am a big fan of Hibernate (way before the JBoss acquisition) but I have found that development with ActiveRecord is much quicker and easier. This assumes ofcourse that your schema adopts to Rails conventions or is at the design stage. ActiveRecord also works with legacy schemas but it’s obviously not as straight forward. Hibernate has a heavy dependency on XML configuration and/or JDK 1.5 annotations which is more configuration details that your SEs will have to support while ActiveRecord heavily relies on meta programming (belongs\_to) and sane db conventions. If legacy is not an issue (I envy you), I would pick ActiveRecord from the get go. As for languages, Although I have been professionally doing Java/C++ much longer than Ruby, I find that Ruby is far more intuitive and requires much less boiler plate code to write which translates into lower support costs for your product. Due to the fact that Ruby is quite poetic, developers develop a strong attachment to the language and really get into what they are doing which leads to much higher quality code which again translates into less support costs. It has been suggested that Ruby runs slower on the server than Java but this is usually an unfounded statement as since 80% of the time is spent in the DB, the server side processing doesn’t usually even factor into the equation. I have also experienced much easier server side debugging with Rails compared to a full fledged J2EE application container. Please take all this with a grain of salt as I don’t know the details of your problem domain and I am strongly Ruby biased as I simply adore the language. Not to start a flame war but one amazing feature of developing on Macs is TextMate and that is worth the price of admission right there. Everyone has an editor preference but it’s hard to beat text mate bundles. As for DBs, it all depends upon the requirements of your problem domain. Clustering? Replication? Fail-Over?, DBA assets? If you have a PL/SQL DBA in house, then Oracle may be your ticket. I myself prefer MySQL BUT like I said, suggesting a DB without knowing the specifics of the problem domain is ludicrous. I hope this at least gives you some hints and I wish your startup all the best. If I had to start my own startup based on a brand smacking new DB application, could get any resource that we required, had investors that would never say no, could use the development process I wanted, had coders that were young at heart, curious, and brave, and I could hand pick ALL the requirements of the app, I would go with something like this Rails/ActiveRecord MySQL Mac/TextMate Apache/Mongrel HAML SVN Fridays’ off Breakfast in bed XBOX Lots of adoring fans Corner office overlooking a peaceful lake Big 27" monitor Lots of good quality, affordable restaurants within walking distance Winning lottery ticket Mothering law that couldn’t speak English ilan ---
**Author:** ![Ralphmiller](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@Ralphmiller](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ralphmiller)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2007, 6:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-on-rails-vs-j2ee-opensource-vs-apple-webobjects-etc/111615/5 "2007-08-09T18:32:29Z")
Ralphmiller wrote: > Any Suggestions on this? Rails is nice, go for it 🙂 Well, actually you should probably do the usual development tasks regarding choice of technology. I’m not quite sure what you’re looking for? I chose Ruby and Rails because it’s a great programming language, it’s a joy to use, it provides a whole lot of foundation so you don’t have to spend a lot of time getting separate technologies working together and it’s pretty damn fast to get stuff done with Rails. > > users, Orders, products, etc… > > > > Performance, scalability, availability and reliability are certainly > > key to our project. We are in the process of DB selection in terms of > > MySQL vs. Oracle Express Edition. > > > > One final question about availability of experienced resources for > > Ruby on Rails… > > > > Thanks – Cheers, - Jacob A.