I’m a hyper-enthusiast!
December 21st, 2005Maybe you already know what I’m going to talk about. Yes, it’s the infamous blog post by Bruck Eckel about why all the “hyper-enthusiasts” are leaving Java for Ruby. And he wonders what makes Ruby so special. And, DHH inevitably quotes this and doubts Bruce Eckel’s motivations behind posting such a vitriolic post. There was quite a long discussion about this on ruby-talk today, with some really funny comments.
Though I might not agree with Bruce Eckel on his opinions about Ruby, I do respect him a lot. His book “Thinking in Java” is simply awesome. I taught myself Java almost entirely from this book. I even thought of learning Python quite some times because someone like Bruce likes it. But I don’t know why, Python and me just never clicked. I also suspect that’s because Python never had a really good/popular web framework until Rails came along. I was interested in web programming, so I naturally went to J2EE. But I have to admit, I always felt about writing such verbose code in Java. I simply couldn’t escape it. So I guess the readers would understand why Rails is a breath of fresh air. And Ruby, such a good fit because I can do web programming, with all the doo-dahs of a fully OO, open source, dynamic language.
I’ve thought about my affliction for the latest shiniest bauble around, and wondered quite a few times if I’m not a framework whore. But, I should say I always picked the winners – Struts, iBatis, Spring Framework, now Rails. Actually I do quite a bit of research before I switch frameworks. As we all know, it means a steep learning curve and going through some frustrations doing things slower than before. All in the hope that it will make you much more productive than before. Not a bad motive, I should say. There is a good side to hyper-enthusiasts and framework whores: we like to learn new stuff. We don’t want to settle for what’s already there. If there’s a better way to do it, we’ll know about it. We are the change agents. I’m quite proud of that.
Well, no matter who you had to sleep with to get where you are, I think you’ve ended up in the right bed! I’ve gone the Struts->Spring->Rails path myself(skipped over iBatis, just learning Rails now).
It’s true of AJAX, and it’s true of RUBY: the geeks like it, and that’s the only proof you need that it’s good. See this essay by Paul Graham:
http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html
The proof that Ajax is the next hot platform is that thousands of hackers have spontaneously started building things on top of it. Mikey likes it.
Are you finding clients asking for Rails work in India yet? Or do they not care what language / package is used, as long as projects are on time and under budget? I’ve noticed a lot of the startups out here in Silicon Valley are building exclusively on Rails.
Nice site btw, very thoughtful writing.
Thanks for the compliment Jonathan, your blog is quite interesting too. I see that you are something of an Ajax guru – great to see that! I have so much to learn in the Ajax space.
Coming to Rails, the current client I’m working with certainly doesn’t care what platform I’m doing it in. But that’s okay, it was never about the clients – RoR makes my life easy, so that’s good enough for me. But there is surprisingly good awareness of Rails in Indian developers. Maybe it’s just a matter of time before the clients too will get to know of it’s advantages and start demanding it.