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Ask HN: Language & web framework advice?

5 pointsmarilyn6 comments

I recently came up with a new idea for a web app I would like to put together. I have been a long time perl/mod_perl web developer, and I am thinking of trying my hand at a new language and framework for this project.

I am thinking of trying out Ruby on Rails, as it seems to be the "it" thing in web dev, and I quite like the term "rapid development".

I'd like to put the question to the HN: Is Ruby on Rails a good choice for a new language/framework to learn? Are there any major drawbacks to Ruby on Rails? Are there better choices out there I should be looking at?

My aim is have some fun learning something new, while building something cool, while also improving my marketability by getting another useful skill in my toolkit.

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I spent a long time with Perl, and because of that, Ruby felt very, very comfortable. Like Steve Yegge put it, you get the Best of Perl, without the Rest of Perl. This isn't to say the language is without warts, but overall, it does a good job of getting out of your way.

Rails isn't a bad thing to learn, if anything because it really does a good job of teaching MVC web application design. And it makes development of CRUD apps happen very, very fast.

If you're a perl head, try one of the modern web frameworks for Perl, such as Catalyst http://www.catalystframework.org/ As a long-time pythoneer, I first had a look at RoR, but not being able to reuse old code and programming prowess is a letdown, so I tried Django and I liked it.

tl;dr: There's rails-like frameworks for many languages now. If you're heavily invested in one programming language, try the web frameworks there.

use python and either django or pylons. Ruby will be familiar to you - rails might be a bit new.

(coming from a perl background some (questionable) elements in ruby will please you like built-in regex operator ~ and backticks)

What's 'questionable' about having a regex operator?

If you are interested in PHP you might want to give Zend Studio a look. You can use it to develop in the Zend Framework using MVC.

You can definitely build some cool things with it, and PHP is marketable.

RoR was the "it" thing four years ago. The "it" thing today is server side JS with NoSQL.

That said, RoR sounds like a better choice for your goals.

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