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Rails is not for building big apps. It works better for small, even quick and dirty apps. When you want to build something that is big or that will evolve into

Rails is not for building big apps. It works better for small, even quick and dirty apps. When you want to build something that is big or that will evolve into big, choose a better language and don't rely on a framework to save you. In fact even big apps are better broken up into many separate functional apps integrated by things like an RDBMS or a message queue broker or a NoSQL cluster. And you really need to think hard about caching. There are many layers at which you can cache stuff and when you get into caching parts of pages, there is a whole architectural design issue around how to divide things up. In solving these kinds of problems Rails and its overly simplified ActiveRecord pattern, just don`t give you much wiggle room.

mattdeboard 13y ago
I've been thinking a lot of the same thoughts about Django. I'm tempted -- but far too lazy -- to write a decision tree about using Django (which would probably also apply for rails). I really love your comment, Don't rely on a framework to save you. Django is great for consultants/contractors who need to crank out work fairly quickly that may be quite similar to other jobs they've got on the docket. It's great for new programmers or programmers who aren't familiar with the OS-level interactions between a web server and a programming language. It's great for apps with very low complexity (current and projected). Once you start getting out of these use cases though, IMO, you are asking for trouble getting too invested in the Django (or Rails) ecosystem. It's worth it to learn about how the web server interfaces with the language runtime, so that you can capitalize on microframeworks. When you buy into a framework, you're buying into a huge set of opinions about really important things that have been made based on being flexible enough for about anyone. I love Django for what it has enabled me to do in my life, and have learned so, so much from getting into its guts to solve problems. That said it would take a lot for me as a salaried, in-house software developer to start a new project using (Django | Rails).
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mattdeboard 13y ago

I've been thinking a lot of the same thoughts about Django. I'm tempted -- but far too lazy -- to write a decision tree about using Django (which would probably also apply for rails). I really love your comment, Don't rely on a framework to save you. Django is great for consultants/contractors who need to crank out work fairly quickly that may be quite similar to other jobs they've got on the docket. It's great for new programmers or programmers who aren't familiar with the OS-level interactions between a web server and a programming language. It's great for apps with very low complexity (current and projected). Once you start getting out of these use cases though, IMO, you are asking for trouble getting too invested in the Django (or Rails) ecosystem. It's worth it to learn about how the web server interfaces with the language runtime, so that you can capitalize on microframeworks. When you buy into a framework, you're buying into a huge set of opinions about really important things that have been made based on being flexible enough for about anyone. I love Django for what it has enabled me to do in my life, and have learned so, so much from getting into its guts to solve problems. That said it would take a lot for me as a salaried, in-house software developer to start a new project using (Django | Rails).

deleted 13y ago

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