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revisionism is a dangerous endeavor. react is vastly more popular than rails but doesn’t exalt any of these so-called bedrock of rails’ popularity and longevity

revisionism is a dangerous endeavor. react is vastly more popular than rails but doesn’t exalt any of these so-called bedrock of rails’ popularity and longevity. rails appeared at the right time and commented itself as the go-to framework for web development. it enjoyed a monopoly of the worse-is-better crowd’s time and energy. it had a curious coincidence with agile manifesto and the surge for software-as-a-service business. in my opinion, it cemented its place. it’s losing now, to both rails-esque and anti-rails framework but it will be a while until it isn’t among first 3 recommended frameworks for building web/API-based software. the doctrine is largely nonsense.

tinco 3y ago
It cemented itself amidst a whole bunch of web frameworks that didn't achieve its success. If you don't believe that's because of its doctrine you're fooling yourself. When Rails gained not just popularity but great success (as measured in successful businesses launched on it) the back end web development framework market wasn't some uncontested market ripe for the taking. PHP was still picking up speed, Java frameworks were released every semester, Microsoft was packing features into .Net at a steady clip, I think even Django was already well loved in the Python community. That a framework built on a programming language no one even knew existed would become the most effective web development platform for the better part of the next 5 years was beyond anyone's expectations. It's because Rails was built on consistently good or great decisions, and the only way to be that consistently good is to have a doctrine guiding you. From the outside it might look quirky, but having a strong opinion on how things should be done specifically for developer productivity and happiness has been a corner stone of the Ruby community since its inception.
- yawboakye 3y ago
  you’d be an easy prey to the idea that people can explain their successes and/or attribute it to the one enabler. but you’d be wrong. haphazard systems have won over well-crafted ones when the well-crafted has underestimated the folly of the crowd and its propensity to stick with a bad choice. i submit for your consideration the success and monopoly of javascript. is it because of a yet unpenned doctrine by brendan rich, who, if anything, has only rendered apologies for certain bad decisions. point is, success doesn’t necessary mean a coherence of thought and practice. especially in rails’ case where we’re talking about its popularity among humans, the most irrational of beings. the crowd elected rails, not for its doctrines. i’m a rails developer and contributor, and none of that arrived by virtue of the doctrine dhh (and by extension, you) espouse.

tinco 3y ago

It cemented itself amidst a whole bunch of web frameworks that didn't achieve its success. If you don't believe that's because of its doctrine you're fooling yourself. When Rails gained not just popularity but great success (as measured in successful businesses launched on it) the back end web development framework market wasn't some uncontested market ripe for the taking. PHP was still picking up speed, Java frameworks were released every semester, Microsoft was packing features into .Net at a steady clip, I think even Django was already well loved in the Python community. That a framework built on a programming language no one even knew existed would become the most effective web development platform for the better part of the next 5 years was beyond anyone's expectations. It's because Rails was built on consistently good or great decisions, and the only way to be that consistently good is to have a doctrine guiding you. From the outside it might look quirky, but having a strong opinion on how things should be done specifically for developer productivity and happiness has been a corner stone of the Ruby community since its inception.

yawboakye 3y ago
you’d be an easy prey to the idea that people can explain their successes and/or attribute it to the one enabler. but you’d be wrong. haphazard systems have won over well-crafted ones when the well-crafted has underestimated the folly of the crowd and its propensity to stick with a bad choice. i submit for your consideration the success and monopoly of javascript. is it because of a yet unpenned doctrine by brendan rich, who, if anything, has only rendered apologies for certain bad decisions. point is, success doesn’t necessary mean a coherence of thought and practice. especially in rails’ case where we’re talking about its popularity among humans, the most irrational of beings. the crowd elected rails, not for its doctrines. i’m a rails developer and contributor, and none of that arrived by virtue of the doctrine dhh (and by extension, you) espouse.