3 ms·

Additionally, if you're doing the build/buy/etc decision for any project which is going to need a CMS, you're not competing just against "Do it ourself in Rails

by patio11 14y ago

Additionally, if you're doing the build/buy/etc decision for any project which is going to need a CMS, you're not competing just against "Do it ourself in Rails, which we like", you're competing with "Download WordPress and get 80% of the way there for free." WordPress is not the world's best software, but the ecosystem is fairly compelling, and it solves a lot of customer needs very, very quickly. (An off the shelf theme for tens of dollars or custom theme for hundreds gets many projects 100% of the way there.)

debacle 14y ago
More importantly, the consumer knows that if they use WordPress they can fire their current programmers and find someone else. Most people have heard of WordPress. Some have heard of Rails. Almost no one has heard of Django.
- __alexs 14y ago
  Rails is only like 2.5x as common as Django where I am. e.g. http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/ruby%20on%20rails.do http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/ruby%20on%20rails.do vs http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/django.do http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/django.do
- USNetizen 14y ago
  That is absolutely not even close to true unless you are talking about solely non-technical types, who have no reason to even consider FRAMEWORKS like Rails and Django vs CMSs like Wordpress. Instagram, Pinterest, NASA, Disqus, Mozilla, The Onion, Washington Post, NY Times, PBS, etc. all used Django heavily. Just because YOU don't use it, doesn't mean it isn't popular. You committed a social proof. Django is far more popular in many circles than Rails. As Rails is far more popular in others.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    There's a difference between big sites using a particular stack and people (thinking mainly pointy haired boss MBA types) having heard of it. Lots of people have heard of wordpress because they have probably visited blogs with URLs that look like something.wordpress.com and they may have used it to write their own blog. Some people will have heard of rails because it had huge hype at around ~2006 and very vocal advocates including 37s who were known through other avenues because of basecamp and because they blogged a lot. Django on the other hand you may well not have heard of unless you have some knowledge of python or MVC frameworks (or read HN).
TylerE 14y ago
I'm actually going the other direction. Our current implementation is a Drupal 6 site, and we are gearing up for a re-write in Rails. For us, we find the 20% that isn't easily achievable to be a real pain point, and also that at our scale some of the design decisions in Drupal are pretty painful (20k+ users, 500k+ nodes).
- hippich 14y ago
  Could you clarify on which design decisions prevents you from scaling to these numbers?
  - byoung2 14y ago
    I'd like to know as well...the bottleneck with those numbers is likely to be the database, not Drupal, so if you switch to Rails and keep the same database, not much will change.
    - TylerE 14y ago
      The DB setup in Drupal is very join heavy - on the new site many things that are joins in Drupal will be single table - many things drupal offers one-to-many on we only need one-to-one, so can avoid the join. Plus, with the modules we're using we're more or less forced to use MySQL. Rails site will be using Postgres.
      - hippich 14y ago
        So basically, because default Drupal's database schema is too normalized and generic you experience problems. As for Postgresql - you are going to write new code anyway - either in Rails or patch Drupal modules to work correctly with Postgresql. So this one is definitely not a deal breaker. I would advise also to look into option of upgrading to Drupal 7 and using its DB stuff. While it is still join-heavy by default, you have more power to manipulate schema and for example to have flat tables for your content types or store some stuff in MongoDB. And all of it with still Drupal's flexibility and mostly configuring stuff instead of writing it.

by patio11 14y ago

debacle 14y ago

More importantly, the consumer knows that if they use WordPress they can fire their current programmers and find someone else. Most people have heard of WordPress. Some have heard of Rails. Almost no one has heard of Django.

__alexs 14y ago
Rails is only like 2.5x as common as Django where I am. e.g. http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/ruby%20on%20rails.do http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/ruby%20on%20rails.do vs http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/django.do http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/django.do
USNetizen 14y ago
That is absolutely not even close to true unless you are talking about solely non-technical types, who have no reason to even consider FRAMEWORKS like Rails and Django vs CMSs like Wordpress. Instagram, Pinterest, NASA, Disqus, Mozilla, The Onion, Washington Post, NY Times, PBS, etc. all used Django heavily. Just because YOU don't use it, doesn't mean it isn't popular. You committed a social proof. Django is far more popular in many circles than Rails. As Rails is far more popular in others.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  There's a difference between big sites using a particular stack and people (thinking mainly pointy haired boss MBA types) having heard of it. Lots of people have heard of wordpress because they have probably visited blogs with URLs that look like something.wordpress.com and they may have used it to write their own blog. Some people will have heard of rails because it had huge hype at around ~2006 and very vocal advocates including 37s who were known through other avenues because of basecamp and because they blogged a lot. Django on the other hand you may well not have heard of unless you have some knowledge of python or MVC frameworks (or read HN).

TylerE 14y ago

I'm actually going the other direction. Our current implementation is a Drupal 6 site, and we are gearing up for a re-write in Rails. For us, we find the 20% that isn't easily achievable to be a real pain point, and also that at our scale some of the design decisions in Drupal are pretty painful (20k+ users, 500k+ nodes).

hippich 14y ago
Could you clarify on which design decisions prevents you from scaling to these numbers?
- byoung2 14y ago
  I'd like to know as well...the bottleneck with those numbers is likely to be the database, not Drupal, so if you switch to Rails and keep the same database, not much will change.
  - TylerE 14y ago
    The DB setup in Drupal is very join heavy - on the new site many things that are joins in Drupal will be single table - many things drupal offers one-to-many on we only need one-to-one, so can avoid the join. Plus, with the modules we're using we're more or less forced to use MySQL. Rails site will be using Postgres.
    - hippich 14y ago
      So basically, because default Drupal's database schema is too normalized and generic you experience problems. As for Postgresql - you are going to write new code anyway - either in Rails or patch Drupal modules to work correctly with Postgresql. So this one is definitely not a deal breaker. I would advise also to look into option of upgrading to Drupal 7 and using its DB stuff. While it is still join-heavy by default, you have more power to manipulate schema and for example to have flat tables for your content types or store some stuff in MongoDB. And all of it with still Drupal's flexibility and mostly configuring stuff instead of writing it.