5 ms·

For the curious, here is the tech stack: http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/govuk-launch-colophon/ http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/govuk-launch-colophon/

arocks 14y ago
> The majority of our applications are written in ruby, based on either Ruby on Rails or Sinatra. > A few components are written in Scala and built on top of Play 2.0 > We’re running Mapit from MySociety which is built on top of Django Thank god it is not another Drupal based government site!
- tomekEl 14y ago
  wordpress this time
- andyn 14y ago
  To be fair, Drupal et al. are great for throwing at non-technical users and letting them create their own content.
  - arocks 14y ago
    Absolutely agree. But for an entity like the UK govt having plentiful resources, it would be sheer laziness to go with a solution like Drupal due to ease in initial setup. Besides, most Drupal sites look sort of kludgy in appearance.
    - Pwnguinz 14y ago
      You do realize the "appearance" of a site has nothing to do with the underlying stack, right? A Django site can appear like a Rails site can appear like a Drupal site can appear like a ... You can argue for differences in behaviour, sure; but appearance?
      - debacle 14y ago
        I disagree. Drupal makes it hard to do easy things, creates a lot of unnecessary HTML, and makes it very hard to do things not The Drupal Way.
- weego 14y ago
  Thank god the people who consistently failed to deliver large websites based around whatever the stack is didn't manage to get involved. The ones I had to work with all seemed to gravitate around education budgets, but I'm sure it's not the only dept (I'm looking at you SchoolsWeb).
meaty 14y ago
So every fad platform you could possibly imagine. I reckon that the savings are up front but will cost a fortune in the long run and there are virtually no staff in the UK who can support it.
- nicholassmith 14y ago
  Really? Aside from Scala and RabbitMQ I know at least a dozen developers with skill sets in the rest of the technologies, and that's in my very small neck of the woods in the darkest North East England.
  - meaty 14y ago
    Demand is greater than supply in London, which is a big issue. It turns people towards high salary bidding wars, which to be honest offsets the saving.
    - weavejester 14y ago
      I haven't noticed a huge shortage of Ruby on Rails devs in London, and the average salaries don't reflect a major shortage either. According to itjobswatch.co.uk, the average Ruby salary is the same as the average Java salary in London. I also thought the idea of hiring cheap, sub-par developers as a way of saving costs was somewhat discredited by now.
      - meaty 14y ago
        Thats advertised rates. The actual rates are higher or you lose people before you get a chance to offer a place to them. We employ starting at £50,000 and we still lose 80% of our candidates to better cash sums.
        shrikant 14y ago
        Hello, I'd like to get in touch with you. Would you be OK with sharing your email address please? Cheers.

arocks 14y ago

> The majority of our applications are written in ruby, based on either Ruby on Rails or Sinatra. > A few components are written in Scala and built on top of Play 2.0 > We’re running Mapit from MySociety which is built on top of Django Thank god it is not another Drupal based government site!

tomekEl 14y ago
wordpress this time
andyn 14y ago
To be fair, Drupal et al. are great for throwing at non-technical users and letting them create their own content.
- arocks 14y ago
  Absolutely agree. But for an entity like the UK govt having plentiful resources, it would be sheer laziness to go with a solution like Drupal due to ease in initial setup. Besides, most Drupal sites look sort of kludgy in appearance.
  - Pwnguinz 14y ago
    You do realize the "appearance" of a site has nothing to do with the underlying stack, right? A Django site can appear like a Rails site can appear like a Drupal site can appear like a ... You can argue for differences in behaviour, sure; but appearance?
    - debacle 14y ago
      I disagree. Drupal makes it hard to do easy things, creates a lot of unnecessary HTML, and makes it very hard to do things not The Drupal Way.
weego 14y ago
Thank god the people who consistently failed to deliver large websites based around whatever the stack is didn't manage to get involved. The ones I had to work with all seemed to gravitate around education budgets, but I'm sure it's not the only dept (I'm looking at you SchoolsWeb).

meaty 14y ago

So every fad platform you could possibly imagine. I reckon that the savings are up front but will cost a fortune in the long run and there are virtually no staff in the UK who can support it.

nicholassmith 14y ago
Really? Aside from Scala and RabbitMQ I know at least a dozen developers with skill sets in the rest of the technologies, and that's in my very small neck of the woods in the darkest North East England.
- meaty 14y ago
  Demand is greater than supply in London, which is a big issue. It turns people towards high salary bidding wars, which to be honest offsets the saving.
  - weavejester 14y ago
    I haven't noticed a huge shortage of Ruby on Rails devs in London, and the average salaries don't reflect a major shortage either. According to itjobswatch.co.uk, the average Ruby salary is the same as the average Java salary in London. I also thought the idea of hiring cheap, sub-par developers as a way of saving costs was somewhat discredited by now.
    - meaty 14y ago
      Thats advertised rates. The actual rates are higher or you lose people before you get a chance to offer a place to them. We employ starting at £50,000 and we still lose 80% of our candidates to better cash sums.
      - shrikant 14y ago
        Hello, I'd like to get in touch with you. Would you be OK with sharing your email address please? Cheers.