8 ms·

Zero to Riding the Rails in Four Months

55 points by moorage 19y ago

darius 19y ago
I see you moved away from Java. Have you guys tried JBoss Seam (http://www.jboss.com/products/seam http://www.jboss.com/products/seam)? If not I strongly suggest you give it a try. If you love RoR I'm almost sure you'd appreciate JBoss Seam.
- Tichy 19y ago
  I really want to try that, especially since they also support Groovy, if I remember correctly. On the other hand, what puts me off is that it seems to require an application container. I wonder if that would have been the case if it had not been developed by employees of JBoss... So far I was very happy with Tomcat, and I am reluctant to move to a full-fledged application server.
  - michaelneale 19y ago
    It works in tomcat just fine (I hear). Apparently they have examples that show it deploying to it. And other ones as well. Yeah I heart the groovy thing as well. Ruby maybe forthcoming, problem is ruby doesn't have the same sort of java like annotations that groovy has (and seam expects).
geebee 19y ago
Thanks for posting this! It's the sort of informative topic that probably won't generate a lot of commentary (as opposed to the the controversial type that does). But don't interpret quiet as a lack of interest - this is one of the reasons I scan hacker news. Actually, I'm looking for a more comprehensive way way to do authentication in Rails (that doesn't require as much manual intervention as I had to do last time), and this article definitely helped out.
- edw519 19y ago
  2nd the motion. Thank you!
thamer 19y ago
Isn't this quite a big risk? Creating an entire application without knowing the platform requires quite some confidence that it is going to deliver and live up to the hype. I'm glad it worked out for them, but I know my company won't start a new project with Rails because we don't have much knowledge about it. Scaling, especially, seems to be a challenge sometimes (cf Twitter and the related controversy).
- moorage 19y ago
  You're right, it was a risk - but a calculated one. We heard a lot of good things, and decided to try it out for two weeks. At the end of the two week period, we loved it. From the syntactic sugar to the ease of caching, to everything else. You rarely have to reinvent the wheel with RoR, which is a wonderful experience.
- carpal 19y ago
  1) You will never do anything new if you take that attitude. Anything new inherently requires risk. If you do nothing new, you fail. 2) Scaling is a problem for Twitter because it has to scale to such an absolutely massive scale. Saying that you won't choose Rails because Twitter has scaling problems with it is a stupid argument unless you are reasonably sure that you're going to be building an application that will get Twitter-like traffic. No matter what language/framework you choose, if you get the kind of traffic that Twitter does, you will have problems.
  - cstejerean 19y ago
    well, it's one thing to take risks, it's completely different to write a production application in a language and framework you barely know. you end up spending a lot of time looking up things that you already knew how to do in the other languages you were familiar with. also, what happens if the application goes down for unknown reasons and you have to troubleshoot the application at 3am on Sunday? It's sometimes wise to stick to the things you have mastered and learn new technologies on non-critical applications.
DocSavage 19y ago
Great write-up of your experience! It's particularly interesting that you moved away from Java/GWT to RoR. Did you find handrolling your own javascript (+ frameworks) to be just as productive as the Java/GWT approach? (My RoR app has most of the funky javascript GUI after authorization, so it's not indexable anyway.) Some other questions: - When do you plan on releasing your git bundle for TextMate? :) - Has there been any gotchas when using Joyent's Sun platform? - Did you consider using extjs? (http://extjs.com/tutorial/using-ext-grid-ruby-rails http://extjs.com/tutorial/using-ext-grid-ruby-rails) Thanks again for posting.
- moorage 19y ago
  Hey - I'll let my co-founder dan talk to you about git + joyent. As for javascript - javascript is actually a decent language IMHO, the debugging just SUCKS. And the libraries are quite young. I hadn't seen extjs, but maybe I'm alone when I prefer old fashion ULs & LIs for lists and grids and so on. I haven't seen anything that a framework does that betters this. However, I'll look more into extjs. Thanks for the tip!
- danieltoshea 19y ago
  No gotcha's with Joyent so far. I've been using Solaris for a couple years so Matt leaves the sys admin stuff to me. We also use webmin which makes things much much easier. The git bundle is pretty basic (add, commit, pull, and push) if you are interested in it shoot me an email and I will send it to you.
Tichy 19y ago
I thought it only takes a few days to write a web app in Rails (minutes actually). OK, humor aside - I am coming from Java and trying to pick up Rails, and I have to say, I am really not that enchanted. Many things in Rails just seem extremely ugly when you are used to the clean Java code. Passing everything around in Hashes does not seem elegant to me, and I wonder how Code completion is supposed to work with that. Maybe if you know the whole Rails by heart, it is OK and you don't need completions, but I am lazy. Java is not that ugly - it might look like a lot of typing, but actually most of it is done by Code completion/Code generation these days. Spring also offers quite a few "Code by Convention" features, so it is not that much harder than Rails. For example with Java annotations, I only have to press ctrl+space in Eclipse above a variable in a model, and it gives me the options for mapping all sorts of things with hibernate (ie many to many etc). Much nicer than looking things up in a book. Presumably it would be possible to set up the Dev Environment to be able to offer completions in the rails migrations, but that would be a hack - in Java, it follows from the types... Oh and btw, isn't it ugly to have the model code distributed all over the place (migrations, model, database schema)? I'd rather have it all in one place. Internationalization seemed very fishy in Rails, too, from what I gather from "Agile Rails". Anyway, sorry for the rant - I really have to force myself to complete at least one Rails application, but my expectations are rather low. At least perhaps I can appreciate Java again afterwards... I like Ruby, but the reality is probably that in a typical Web Application, it's features don't come into play that often. It's mostly CRUD, after all...
- moorage 19y ago
  Well, give it a try. Again - a tool is just a tool and it has to fit the hand of the person using it. If Java is your thing, Java is your thing... but there is a lot to love in Rails. Give it a shot for your own edification - a lot of making a rails app is the command line: install ... The lightweight plugins are just beautiful, and they would only be possible with Ruby or a language like it. It really makes your code a joy to create, maintain, and update.
  - Tichy 19y ago
    I am determined to write at least one Rails application. Obviously there must be something to it, otherwise it would not have so many fans. I just wrote that rant because I was kind of frustrated with Rails - sometimes aesthetic issues are hampering my productivity. I would be curious how many excellent Java developers have switched to Rails happily. Your example doesn't convince me very much, because of the GWT ingredient. I haven't used it, but the concept sounds very weird (compile Java to JavaScript), so I am not surprised that you gave up on it.
jsjenkins168 19y ago
There should be a clear distinction between Java web development (JSP), and GWT. I think this creates confusion with some. GWT compiles restricted Java code to native Javascript. From an implementation perspective, it is not similar to JSP or JSF at all. When talking about "using Java", one should distinguish if they are talking about GWT because it is totally different. I agree with the reasons mentioned for not using GWT, with the exception of the loading process (this is no longer used in GWT 1.4) and the CSS/HTML argument. You could code your entire site in HTML/CSS if you wanted to, wrapping your HTML in HTMLPanels. That being said, I am not surprised that someone would switch from GWT to RoR. It really depends on what you need. I think for most applications, GWT is simply overkill. Sometimes people dont need to utilize RPC's or client side processing. Rails is so fast and elegant and you can reach desirable results quickly. And lots of people are simply tired of looking at Java syntax from their day jobs (I think this partly fuels the Java-hate). But I would argue that there are times when RoR is not the best choice. The application I'm working on would not be possible for me to build in RoR (realistically). It could be, but I would have to write entire RPC and event listener frameworks to handle the level of complexity required for the asynchronous components. I need bullet-proof debugging, a native Ajax environment, low-level server back-end control, and high-level RPC abstraction right out of the box. We'd like to internationalize this stuff too, and directly integrate iPhone support (loaded via user-defined properties). It is for this type of stuff that GWT is my tool of choice. Sometimes complicated tasks require leveraging tools a bit more complicated to get the job done...

55 points by moorage 19y ago

I see you moved away from Java. Have you guys tried JBoss Seam (http://www.jboss.com/products/seam http://www.jboss.com/products/seam)? If not I strongly suggest you give it a try. If you love RoR I'm almost sure you'd appreciate JBoss Seam.

Tichy 19y ago
I really want to try that, especially since they also support Groovy, if I remember correctly. On the other hand, what puts me off is that it seems to require an application container. I wonder if that would have been the case if it had not been developed by employees of JBoss... So far I was very happy with Tomcat, and I am reluctant to move to a full-fledged application server.
- michaelneale 19y ago
  It works in tomcat just fine (I hear). Apparently they have examples that show it deploying to it. And other ones as well. Yeah I heart the groovy thing as well. Ruby maybe forthcoming, problem is ruby doesn't have the same sort of java like annotations that groovy has (and seam expects).

geebee 19y ago

Thanks for posting this! It's the sort of informative topic that probably won't generate a lot of commentary (as opposed to the the controversial type that does). But don't interpret quiet as a lack of interest - this is one of the reasons I scan hacker news. Actually, I'm looking for a more comprehensive way way to do authentication in Rails (that doesn't require as much manual intervention as I had to do last time), and this article definitely helped out.

edw519 19y ago
2nd the motion. Thank you!

thamer 19y ago

Isn't this quite a big risk? Creating an entire application without knowing the platform requires quite some confidence that it is going to deliver and live up to the hype. I'm glad it worked out for them, but I know my company won't start a new project with Rails because we don't have much knowledge about it. Scaling, especially, seems to be a challenge sometimes (cf Twitter and the related controversy).

moorage 19y ago
You're right, it was a risk - but a calculated one. We heard a lot of good things, and decided to try it out for two weeks. At the end of the two week period, we loved it. From the syntactic sugar to the ease of caching, to everything else. You rarely have to reinvent the wheel with RoR, which is a wonderful experience.
carpal 19y ago
1) You will never do anything new if you take that attitude. Anything new inherently requires risk. If you do nothing new, you fail. 2) Scaling is a problem for Twitter because it has to scale to such an absolutely massive scale. Saying that you won't choose Rails because Twitter has scaling problems with it is a stupid argument unless you are reasonably sure that you're going to be building an application that will get Twitter-like traffic. No matter what language/framework you choose, if you get the kind of traffic that Twitter does, you will have problems.
- cstejerean 19y ago
  well, it's one thing to take risks, it's completely different to write a production application in a language and framework you barely know. you end up spending a lot of time looking up things that you already knew how to do in the other languages you were familiar with. also, what happens if the application goes down for unknown reasons and you have to troubleshoot the application at 3am on Sunday? It's sometimes wise to stick to the things you have mastered and learn new technologies on non-critical applications.

DocSavage 19y ago

Great write-up of your experience! It's particularly interesting that you moved away from Java/GWT to RoR. Did you find handrolling your own javascript (+ frameworks) to be just as productive as the Java/GWT approach? (My RoR app has most of the funky javascript GUI after authorization, so it's not indexable anyway.) Some other questions: - When do you plan on releasing your git bundle for TextMate? :) - Has there been any gotchas when using Joyent's Sun platform? - Did you consider using extjs? (http://extjs.com/tutorial/using-ext-grid-ruby-rails http://extjs.com/tutorial/using-ext-grid-ruby-rails) Thanks again for posting.

moorage 19y ago
Hey - I'll let my co-founder dan talk to you about git + joyent. As for javascript - javascript is actually a decent language IMHO, the debugging just SUCKS. And the libraries are quite young. I hadn't seen extjs, but maybe I'm alone when I prefer old fashion ULs & LIs for lists and grids and so on. I haven't seen anything that a framework does that betters this. However, I'll look more into extjs. Thanks for the tip!
danieltoshea 19y ago
No gotcha's with Joyent so far. I've been using Solaris for a couple years so Matt leaves the sys admin stuff to me. We also use webmin which makes things much much easier. The git bundle is pretty basic (add, commit, pull, and push) if you are interested in it shoot me an email and I will send it to you.

Tichy 19y ago

I thought it only takes a few days to write a web app in Rails (minutes actually). OK, humor aside - I am coming from Java and trying to pick up Rails, and I have to say, I am really not that enchanted. Many things in Rails just seem extremely ugly when you are used to the clean Java code. Passing everything around in Hashes does not seem elegant to me, and I wonder how Code completion is supposed to work with that. Maybe if you know the whole Rails by heart, it is OK and you don't need completions, but I am lazy. Java is not that ugly - it might look like a lot of typing, but actually most of it is done by Code completion/Code generation these days. Spring also offers quite a few "Code by Convention" features, so it is not that much harder than Rails. For example with Java annotations, I only have to press ctrl+space in Eclipse above a variable in a model, and it gives me the options for mapping all sorts of things with hibernate (ie many to many etc). Much nicer than looking things up in a book. Presumably it would be possible to set up the Dev Environment to be able to offer completions in the rails migrations, but that would be a hack - in Java, it follows from the types... Oh and btw, isn't it ugly to have the model code distributed all over the place (migrations, model, database schema)? I'd rather have it all in one place. Internationalization seemed very fishy in Rails, too, from what I gather from "Agile Rails". Anyway, sorry for the rant - I really have to force myself to complete at least one Rails application, but my expectations are rather low. At least perhaps I can appreciate Java again afterwards... I like Ruby, but the reality is probably that in a typical Web Application, it's features don't come into play that often. It's mostly CRUD, after all...

moorage 19y ago
Well, give it a try. Again - a tool is just a tool and it has to fit the hand of the person using it. If Java is your thing, Java is your thing... but there is a lot to love in Rails. Give it a shot for your own edification - a lot of making a rails app is the command line: install ... The lightweight plugins are just beautiful, and they would only be possible with Ruby or a language like it. It really makes your code a joy to create, maintain, and update.
- Tichy 19y ago
  I am determined to write at least one Rails application. Obviously there must be something to it, otherwise it would not have so many fans. I just wrote that rant because I was kind of frustrated with Rails - sometimes aesthetic issues are hampering my productivity. I would be curious how many excellent Java developers have switched to Rails happily. Your example doesn't convince me very much, because of the GWT ingredient. I haven't used it, but the concept sounds very weird (compile Java to JavaScript), so I am not surprised that you gave up on it.

jsjenkins168 19y ago

There should be a clear distinction between Java web development (JSP), and GWT. I think this creates confusion with some. GWT compiles restricted Java code to native Javascript. From an implementation perspective, it is not similar to JSP or JSF at all. When talking about "using Java", one should distinguish if they are talking about GWT because it is totally different. I agree with the reasons mentioned for not using GWT, with the exception of the loading process (this is no longer used in GWT 1.4) and the CSS/HTML argument. You could code your entire site in HTML/CSS if you wanted to, wrapping your HTML in HTMLPanels. That being said, I am not surprised that someone would switch from GWT to RoR. It really depends on what you need. I think for most applications, GWT is simply overkill. Sometimes people dont need to utilize RPC's or client side processing. Rails is so fast and elegant and you can reach desirable results quickly. And lots of people are simply tired of looking at Java syntax from their day jobs (I think this partly fuels the Java-hate). But I would argue that there are times when RoR is not the best choice. The application I'm working on would not be possible for me to build in RoR (realistically). It could be, but I would have to write entire RPC and event listener frameworks to handle the level of complexity required for the asynchronous components. I need bullet-proof debugging, a native Ajax environment, low-level server back-end control, and high-level RPC abstraction right out of the box. We'd like to internationalize this stuff too, and directly integrate iPhone support (loaded via user-defined properties). It is for this type of stuff that GWT is my tool of choice. Sometimes complicated tasks require leveraging tools a bit more complicated to get the job done...