DailyKos considers Ruby on Rails
Posted by josh January 05, 2007 @ 07:25 AM
Earlier this week, Hunter, uber technocrat at DailyKos.com started talking about how they will build the next version of DailyKos. The discussion has been going for a day or two now with over 700 comments as I write this.
While DailyKos is the highest-traffic political blog in the US, I don't think it's particularly newsworthy that they are considering Rails. In fact, I think it's quite the opposite. What I do find interesting is the evolving discussion about the choices. Hunter essentially set out Perl/mod_perl, Python/Django and Ruby/Rails as the main choices. What people have to say about the differences and why they would choose one over the others makes for some really I-should-have-been-in-bed-an-hour-ago reading. Some of what people think they know about Ruby and Rails seems to be out of date or otherwise misinformed, but there are some good arguments on all sides.
If you are gearing up to have a conversation with management about picking Rails for a big project, take a read to see in one place all the arguments you will have to deal with!
I just think it’s amazing Perl is leading in the poll! I love Perl and I still use it in a few areas where Ruby sucks (though the number of these areas is falling monthly) but trumping Python or Ruby as best ‘Web development language’? Man!
What’s your favoutire colour?
Hmmm… As if you can believe internet polls anyway… ;-)
mod_perl/HTML::Mason is the most precise templating, web dev. system I’ve ever seen. In my opinion it’s highly recommended for such complex, large sites.
I think DailyKos and Perl were made for each other—both look like gibberish.
I like, what Kathy Sierra wrote about the “Dumbness of Crowds”. http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/01/the_dumbness_of.html
Link: Dumbness of Crowds
Regardless of politics, the Ruby on Rails community should go all out to help the Daily Kos transition to a RoR based site.. Think of how useful it can be to have the framework stress tested by one of the most heavily trafficed blog sites
I have one of the longer comments, about 650 or so down, and I recommend Ruby on Rails. There are far more savvy people than I on this forum, and I welcome refining and sharpening our case for RoR.
The “what’s the best web-database development framework” question is one we can expect to come up a lot this year, and I’m polling the comments in search of things I hadn’t considered.
If you have background to frame the discussion, by all means head over to DailyKos and frame away!
I too tried to put in my 2 cents for Rails.
About the discussion itself, I work as a developer for another “netroots” entity, Democracy for America, and I would never in a million years consider opening a decision like that up to the community, or even soliciting input.
Political blog commenters are a feisty, opinionated bunch, certain that they’re always right and demanding as hell.
Hunter is a brave man, as he’ll take a lot of heat whenever they announce whichever platform they decide to go with, instantly creating users who will hate the new version.
Regarding some of what people think they know about RoR being out of date or misninformed, perhaps I’m just missing something but I thought the lack of timely dissemination of where rails is and where it is going has always been a weakness. I don’t think most people will “get” it until they’ve already spent the time to really get to know what RoR is and is not good for, what tradeoffs have been made. But not everyone has time time to do that when they’re trying to evaluate a couple of choices for a new site. And apparently some people don’t even wish they had the time ;)
For people who’ve been burned by Perl in the past, I think rails also has to overcome the fear that RoR will eventually go the way Larry and Perl 6 went. I.e. off on some language- or framework- killing tangent.
Anyway, I guess the point is I’m glad I’ve already chosen Rails. Because choosing platforms is hard.
Whatever it’s written in doesn’t matter nearly as much as who’s writing it. Unless you have a talented team no framework/language will help you.
Funny how 1/2 the arguments on there aren’t even language related. The blurb about text margins and line lengths really got to me though.
Had to drop a blog entry on that one...
You mentioned that “Some of what people think they know about Ruby and Rails seems to be out of date or otherwise misinformed, but there are some good arguments on all sides.”
I am a newbie to Rails; can you be more specific? I read that whole thread, and I’m wondering which of the assumptions are out of date or otherwise misinformed, and which are some of the good arguments against RoR?
jamie: maybe he’s talking about how a SQL ORM, code-in-HTML templates, Prototype for JS, and lightweight-IDE-necessitating file structure have been eclipsed by more usable/concise alternatives like RDF, Markaby, JQuery, and single-file app structures, and since theyre not ‘baked-in’ to rails, youre left with further integration work to use them. i’ve been blogging about my experience with rails
odd. it replaced the inside of the href= attribute with a link to this article instead of the one i left.. anyways. i did find rails an important stepping stone to better things.
Perl and the daily kos go together well Both read like jibersh