Should I use Rails for a social networking site?

Rails
1

I’ve been talking with a friend of a friend about perhaps being “the
techie” of her new social networking site. She has a business
background so she has no language biases one way or another, although
she has been involved in the business aspects of launching websites in
the past, so she doesn’t have any experience with Rails.

From what I’ve gleaned from her, she doesn’t want to do anything
technically difficult or groundbreaking. Assuming that I want to
persuade her to use Rails, what arguments should I use? OR, perhaps
social networking websites are a “solved” problem, and the language
used doesn’t really matter?

2

On 11/9/06, list junkie [email protected] wrote:

Assuming that I want to
persuade her to use Rails, what arguments should I use?

http://pastie.caboo.se/21494

You are now halfway there :slight_smile:

j/k of course.

–
Greg D.
http://destiney.com/

3

The same arguments you use for pushing Rails any time.

1.) It’s fast, coder-friendly and flexible. You can do your work faster,
adjust to new requirements faster, and maintain the code effectively.
2.) She can boast on her site that she’s using that sexy new framework,
Ruby on Rails.
3.) [Insert other benefits here]

4

Coming from a business and not tech background, you need to make sure
she can answer the following questions:

  1. will your site DO something hard to replicate by competitors?
  2. will your site TARGET a group of people not satisfied with
    competitors?
  3. will the site launch with a formidable set of PARTNERSHIPS?

If the answer to all is “no,” then I wouldn’t expect the site to
succeed. Proceed at your own risk. (I know this is non-technical but
I’m trying to contribute what skills I have!)