Web 2.0 Platform with Ruby

Hi I have a general question.
I am just begging to study IS.
So I have plans to build a web site, similar to MySpace or Facebook.
Will RoR be the language to work with?
What are the prons and cons of using something else?
And I am a newbie. How long will it take to learn everthing. the LAMP?
well, ruby instead of php.
or do I still need php? do I need AJAX?

Thanks.

Vector wrote:

Hi I have a general question.
I am just begging to study IS.
So I have plans to build a web site, similar to MySpace or Facebook.
Will RoR be the language to work with?

RoR is a platform, not a language, but otherwise the answer is “yes”.

If both you and Merb were more mature, I’d say go for Merb.

Yet RoR is incredibly well documented and supported, for one reason: It
contains
an elegant solution for each of the super-hard problems in web
development. The
web was invented in a rush, and filled up with half-assed technologies.
(Anyone
disagreeing with me must prove their Spam buckets are completely empty
first.)

Ruby is such a good programming language that its community has
collaborated to
produce “best practices” solutions for each web problem. For HTML we
have eRB,
for Ajax we have prototype.js, for databases we have ActiveRecord, etc.
(Note I
didn’t say each of these was “best”. I said they use “best practices”,
which are
sophisticated software engineering guidelines that keep problems
manageable.)

What are the prons and cons of using something else?

The corporate tools will attempt to use “vendor lockin” on you, to force
you to
only buy their product.

And I am a newbie. How long will it take to learn everthing. the LAMP?
well, ruby instead of php.
or do I still need php? do I need AJAX?

You are mixing apples and oranges. PHP is a language, LAMP is a strategy
(Linux
Apache MySQL and an interPreted language), and AJAX is a DHTML
technique.

To learn them all, as rapidly as you can, get with your local users
groups.


Phlip

thanks