5 July 2007
Go-Railers in the Midst …
Dian Fossey would be proud. The comments and feedback I’ve received regarding my last post ranged from the contemplative: “excellent (though painful to read)…” to the vitriolic: “retarted.” Suffice it to say, I was impressed with the throng of Railers defending their (our) beloved framework (and more importantly “movement”) like Sigourney Weaver defending African Mountain Gorillas from hell-bound Poachers and Rawandan fatcat beauracrats. Apparently, I’ve offended. I’ve re-read that post a few times; its an order of magnitude less than a glove-slap as I see it. The funny thing is that post was one piece in a set of three attempting to ojectively analyze The Technology (Capital T - a compliment) from a business person’s (apparently an idiot business person’s) perspective. The others were:
Ruby on Rails as a Platform of Choice? The Case for Rails: examines why a business person *should* evangelize Rails as his or her chosen platform
Revenue on Ruby on Rails: examines our quantitative observations about productivity using the Rails framework
Two of the most interesting, legitimate, and constructive responses/rebuttals to both my post and the comments it engered that I’ve seen are the following:
From a noted Groovyist, Graeme Rocher: 5 More misconceptions about Grails
Graeme takes issue with the Rubyists and Railers denegrating Groovy/Grails.
“An interesting aspect of the above post however, was the reaction of Ruby/Rails users to the outrageous comment that Grails is a more realistic alternative in the enterprise. Some of the comments including even more classic misconceptions and knee-jerk reactions which I will address in this post..”
From Jon Dahl of Rail Spikes: Rails Develpers: Experts or Script Kiddies
Jon finds my statement regarding the mixed quality of developers in the Rails community to be interesting. Jon has the intellectual honesty to recognize that in a burgeoning movement such as Rails, its difficult and impossible to separate the technology from the enthusiasts as well as the poseurs. Both groups become ambassadors for the technolgy; and, given the groundswell in recognition for Ruby/Rails, the good, bad, and ugly come along with the territory.
“At the same time, there are a more and more mediocre Rails developers watering down the community. This wasn’t true two years ago, but as Rails grows, it attracts more and more newbies. There is nothing wrong with this; Rails is pretty welcoming to newbies, and today’s newbies are tomorrow’s experts.”
Jon does take issue with my statement that Rails encourages bad code and asserts the opposite. A position that I find to be accurate under the assumption that the developer is strong and legitimate. If not (see poseurs) business people tend to get apps that are problematic because Rails’ goodies and infrastructure can help cloak weak code as mediocre developers churn out features.
