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> (1) If you are a Rails developer you need to be a full-time Rails developer and not do too much else. You can't do Rails and a bunch of other things because R

> (1) If you are a Rails developer you need to be a full-time Rails developer and not do too much else. You can't do Rails and a bunch of other things because Rails will take up a lot of your time. I'm glad to see someone else say this. I don't use rails often, nor am I a "front end" developer by trade. I have put together some simple web apps using rails, but it seems that each time I go back to rails and try to use the newest released version I'm starting back close to square 1 due to how things always seem to change. I always just assumed that I didn't grok web frameworks, though this is still a possibility.

Jd 15y ago
There is a huge learning curve with Rails, insofar as it is its own "opinionated" framework with numerous conventions, if well-chosen, that are unique to Rails. You can deploy web apps in Rails without adopting all of these things, but you will never be respected by Rails developers (I've heard devs say "that's not the Rails way" countless times). Usually these conventions are chosen for good reasons (even though they frequently change), but impose a significant cost since you have to learn: (1) Ruby the language (2) Idiomatic Ruby as perceived by Rails Devs (3) Rails conventions (4) Appropriate plugins/addons All of them take a decent amount of time to learn (well). 3 & 4 also change pretty frequently. So, it is possible you "grok" everything quite well (I'd guess that you do), but haven't learned all the specifics that make things tick the "Rails way."
cies 15y ago
i feel often enough that things could be simpler in rails, but still i think that rails is currently still the fastest fw to get most webapps done. by most webapps i mean: (r)dbms-backed, uses a fair bit of html/css (not pure js), that needs to do 'common webapp things' (authentication though fb/google/etc.; audit trails; some REST api; memcache; pagination; ...) going back -- to php, jsp or even (albeit less so) django -- would complicate things for me. i feel at time rails might seem to take up a lot of time; but actually it is web development just being quite laborious, and rails one of the best fw to "take the pain out of it" and "providing sane defaults that can be changed where you see fit".
chrstphrwrght 15y ago
I've tinkered with Rails projects on and off since 2005, but it's never been my main gig. I'm sure if I was using it full-time I'd be okay keeping up to date with the latest trends and conventions, but as it stands I wind up Googling before almost every decision to ask "Okay, so how are we doing this now?" I figure that infrequent users like us aren't who the Rails core is catering for, and that's fine. It does feel like a slow reboot coming back to Rails every 6-12 months for small projects, but I still recognise that it's a great framework that solves a lot of problems. When making a decision on what technology to use, I often consider Sinatra for its simplicity. Rails feels like a black box to me at times - again, likely not a problem if it's your bread and butter.
jarin 15y ago
I think most Rails developers I know are also full-time designers, JavaScripters, database admins (SQL and NoSQL), server admins, IT people, project managers, forum posters, Stack Overflow answerers, social media gurus, SEO/SEM experts, and salespeople. It just sort of comes with the territory that being a good Rails developer means being a polymath.
- awj 15y ago
  Yeah, as a Rails developer I seriously doubt any of us are full time any of those things. I've met people that actually do full time JavaScript dev and DB admin, the knowledge difference between us is staggering. Rails developers need to wear lots of hats to get their jobs done. They need to be "good enough" at each of those. That, in itself, is a difficult enough task. You don't need to go trying to claim they do full time level work for six different jobs.

Jd 15y ago

There is a huge learning curve with Rails, insofar as it is its own "opinionated" framework with numerous conventions, if well-chosen, that are unique to Rails. You can deploy web apps in Rails without adopting all of these things, but you will never be respected by Rails developers (I've heard devs say "that's not the Rails way" countless times). Usually these conventions are chosen for good reasons (even though they frequently change), but impose a significant cost since you have to learn: (1) Ruby the language (2) Idiomatic Ruby as perceived by Rails Devs (3) Rails conventions (4) Appropriate plugins/addons All of them take a decent amount of time to learn (well). 3 & 4 also change pretty frequently. So, it is possible you "grok" everything quite well (I'd guess that you do), but haven't learned all the specifics that make things tick the "Rails way."

cies 15y ago

i feel often enough that things could be simpler in rails, but still i think that rails is currently still the fastest fw to get most webapps done. by most webapps i mean: (r)dbms-backed, uses a fair bit of html/css (not pure js), that needs to do 'common webapp things' (authentication though fb/google/etc.; audit trails; some REST api; memcache; pagination; ...) going back -- to php, jsp or even (albeit less so) django -- would complicate things for me. i feel at time rails might seem to take up a lot of time; but actually it is web development just being quite laborious, and rails one of the best fw to "take the pain out of it" and "providing sane defaults that can be changed where you see fit".

chrstphrwrght 15y ago

I've tinkered with Rails projects on and off since 2005, but it's never been my main gig. I'm sure if I was using it full-time I'd be okay keeping up to date with the latest trends and conventions, but as it stands I wind up Googling before almost every decision to ask "Okay, so how are we doing this now?" I figure that infrequent users like us aren't who the Rails core is catering for, and that's fine. It does feel like a slow reboot coming back to Rails every 6-12 months for small projects, but I still recognise that it's a great framework that solves a lot of problems. When making a decision on what technology to use, I often consider Sinatra for its simplicity. Rails feels like a black box to me at times - again, likely not a problem if it's your bread and butter.

jarin 15y ago

I think most Rails developers I know are also full-time designers, JavaScripters, database admins (SQL and NoSQL), server admins, IT people, project managers, forum posters, Stack Overflow answerers, social media gurus, SEO/SEM experts, and salespeople. It just sort of comes with the territory that being a good Rails developer means being a polymath.

awj 15y ago
Yeah, as a Rails developer I seriously doubt any of us are full time any of those things. I've met people that actually do full time JavaScript dev and DB admin, the knowledge difference between us is staggering. Rails developers need to wear lots of hats to get their jobs done. They need to be "good enough" at each of those. That, in itself, is a difficult enough task. You don't need to go trying to claim they do full time level work for six different jobs.