7 ms·

Q&A with David Heinemeier Hansson

43 points by jdaudier 13y ago

jiggy2011 13y ago
I'd be curious as to exactly what features comprised the first released version of rails. Was it originally in the MVC structure we know today, or was it more a mixture of random parts that were refactored into that later? Did it use a CGI model, or did it embed webbrick from the start? etc.
- ebarendt 13y ago
  You can see all the gems back to 2004 here: http://rubygems.org/gems/rails/versions http://rubygems.org/gems/rails/versions. Github has the 1.2 branch: https://github.com/rails/rails/tree/1-2-stable https://github.com/rails/rails/tree/1-2-stable
- fizx 13y ago
  I used rails 0.8, which was a couple months after rails 0.5, the first released version. It was the same mvc structure, centered around activerecord, actioncontroller, and erb views. It embedded webrick for development, and production was a heinous cobbled-together choice of fcgi, fastcgi, or pcgi that you were expected to figure out for yourself.
- damoncali 13y ago
  It wasn't terribly different. Old apps are still recognizable as rails. It is just more polished now, and a few head scratchers have died off like RJS and components, and a lot has been refined. The biggest differnces are probably the asset pipeline, bundler, and UJS. Production hosting was an absolute nightmare. I never did understand it. Thankfully, it got better quickly.
Luyt 13y ago
I made a transcription of a FLOSS interview with DHH about Rails, Ruby, and how he became a programmer. http://www.transcribed-interview.com/dhh-rails-david-heinemeier-hansson-interview-randal-schwartz-floss.html http://www.transcribed-interview.com/dhh-rails-david-heineme... From that interview: "The wonderful thing about the Web is that it divorces the notion of the native environment from the implementational technology. Any piece of programming language can spit out HTML and JavaScript, which means that you can build it in whatever the hell you want. It can be a tiny program. _You_ can invent a language and you can start using it and your users will not know the difference. So it really is this great equalizer in the sense of allowing new technologies to spring up and get serious traction because they don't need those network effects."
milkshakes 13y ago
Error establishing a database connection. I guess they didn't ask him any questions about caching or scalability...
- jdaudier 13y ago
  Ok - should be fixed now.
  - josh2600 13y ago
    I was gonna say, it's not like I wanted to read it or anything. Are you guys running a reverse proxy? It kinda looks like a naked Wordpress install that's borked. Really interested in the article; looking forward to you guys getting back online! As a unit of measure, when I hit the top 10 on HN I get about 6-8000 hits in the day. I would imagine that a DHH article would be 5-10x of that.
    - jdaudier 13y ago
      We're up. Got attacked by a bot.
crisnoble 13y ago
>JavaScript is there to decorate HTML, not the other way around. Does that mean that HTML is not there to decorate JavaScript? Or is he dinging Backbone and the other JS MV* frameworks cropping up.
- dchuk 13y ago
  The latter.
  - smrtinsert 13y ago
    Conflict of interests. The server side is dying.
    - rhizome 13y ago
      Did you not live through the thin- vs. thick-client wars of the 90s? It's an ever-swinging pendulum.
    - acdha 13y ago
      This oscillates back and forth: we're never going to get rid of one side so it's pointless to start claiming the world has changed when a 60-40 split flips. As an example: all of the apps which still work if anything, anywhere, doesn't load and run a huge pile of JS correctly. c.f. Twitter, Gawker, etc. The client side is fragile to an extent which simply isn't true on the server – this doesn't mean you don't use it but rather that you still have to think about what happens when something breaks.
jsnk 13y ago
"JavaScript is there to decorate HTML, not the other way around." Would it be fair to say this is a subtle jab at JavaScript used on the server side, namely what nodejs is doing?
- gkop 13y ago
  No, it's a jab at client-side frameworks like Angular and Ember.
- admyral 13y ago
  Digging for controversy? He's pretty opinionated on where he feels JavaScript fits into the stack. Should be completely expected coming from the creator of a server side framework.
- kyllo 13y ago
  No, he means the application logic should be on the server side, not in the browser. I doubt he has a problem with server-side Node.js.
tieTYT 13y ago
I wonder what his opinion about Functional Programming is.

43 points by jdaudier 13y ago

jiggy2011 13y ago

I'd be curious as to exactly what features comprised the first released version of rails. Was it originally in the MVC structure we know today, or was it more a mixture of random parts that were refactored into that later? Did it use a CGI model, or did it embed webbrick from the start? etc.

ebarendt 13y ago
You can see all the gems back to 2004 here: http://rubygems.org/gems/rails/versions http://rubygems.org/gems/rails/versions. Github has the 1.2 branch: https://github.com/rails/rails/tree/1-2-stable https://github.com/rails/rails/tree/1-2-stable
fizx 13y ago
I used rails 0.8, which was a couple months after rails 0.5, the first released version. It was the same mvc structure, centered around activerecord, actioncontroller, and erb views. It embedded webrick for development, and production was a heinous cobbled-together choice of fcgi, fastcgi, or pcgi that you were expected to figure out for yourself.
damoncali 13y ago
It wasn't terribly different. Old apps are still recognizable as rails. It is just more polished now, and a few head scratchers have died off like RJS and components, and a lot has been refined. The biggest differnces are probably the asset pipeline, bundler, and UJS. Production hosting was an absolute nightmare. I never did understand it. Thankfully, it got better quickly.

Luyt 13y ago

I made a transcription of a FLOSS interview with DHH about Rails, Ruby, and how he became a programmer. http://www.transcribed-interview.com/dhh-rails-david-heinemeier-hansson-interview-randal-schwartz-floss.html http://www.transcribed-interview.com/dhh-rails-david-heineme... From that interview: "The wonderful thing about the Web is that it divorces the notion of the native environment from the implementational technology. Any piece of programming language can spit out HTML and JavaScript, which means that you can build it in whatever the hell you want. It can be a tiny program. _You_ can invent a language and you can start using it and your users will not know the difference. So it really is this great equalizer in the sense of allowing new technologies to spring up and get serious traction because they don't need those network effects."

milkshakes 13y ago

Error establishing a database connection. I guess they didn't ask him any questions about caching or scalability...

jdaudier 13y ago
Ok - should be fixed now.
- josh2600 13y ago
  I was gonna say, it's not like I wanted to read it or anything. Are you guys running a reverse proxy? It kinda looks like a naked Wordpress install that's borked. Really interested in the article; looking forward to you guys getting back online! As a unit of measure, when I hit the top 10 on HN I get about 6-8000 hits in the day. I would imagine that a DHH article would be 5-10x of that.
  - jdaudier 13y ago
    We're up. Got attacked by a bot.

crisnoble 13y ago

>JavaScript is there to decorate HTML, not the other way around. Does that mean that HTML is not there to decorate JavaScript? Or is he dinging Backbone and the other JS MV* frameworks cropping up.

dchuk 13y ago
The latter.
- smrtinsert 13y ago
  Conflict of interests. The server side is dying.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    Did you not live through the thin- vs. thick-client wars of the 90s? It's an ever-swinging pendulum.
  - acdha 13y ago
    This oscillates back and forth: we're never going to get rid of one side so it's pointless to start claiming the world has changed when a 60-40 split flips. As an example: all of the apps which still work if anything, anywhere, doesn't load and run a huge pile of JS correctly. c.f. Twitter, Gawker, etc. The client side is fragile to an extent which simply isn't true on the server – this doesn't mean you don't use it but rather that you still have to think about what happens when something breaks.

jsnk 13y ago

"JavaScript is there to decorate HTML, not the other way around." Would it be fair to say this is a subtle jab at JavaScript used on the server side, namely what nodejs is doing?

gkop 13y ago
No, it's a jab at client-side frameworks like Angular and Ember.
admyral 13y ago
Digging for controversy? He's pretty opinionated on where he feels JavaScript fits into the stack. Should be completely expected coming from the creator of a server side framework.
kyllo 13y ago
No, he means the application logic should be on the server side, not in the browser. I doubt he has a problem with server-side Node.js.

tieTYT 13y ago

I wonder what his opinion about Functional Programming is.