Python or Ruby for fresh startup | Hacker News Reader

Python or Ruby for fresh startup

8 pointssvin8012 comments

Which one to choose? Both have great MVC frameworks. But I've heard that python has a bad mysql provider. Ruby is difficult to deploy... Is it easier to find rubypeople or pythoners?

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There's nothing wrong with Django's MySQL-driver, and RoR might be the easiest thing in the world to deploy with Heroku. It seems to me you should read up a bit on both, try them both out, and rely a bit less on rumor and hearsay. In reality they are both great choices for many types of web apps, but which one is right for you depends on a lot of different factors. Find out which one you like to work with the most, and you probably have your answer.

Finding Ruby and Python people is the least of the considerations. There are tons of people for both, including a huge swath of them who can do both well.

I'd recommend reading the discussion here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/91846/rails-or-django-or-...

Some great back-and-forth that may help illuminate your decision.

(I assume you're talking about Rails vs. Django, but Python has some lighter-weight frameworks that can speed up development. Ruby may too, but I'm not as familiar.)

I will suggest you to start with the one you are most comfortable with. Both has strong community. Being a pythoneer, I can assure that python community and IRC is very has lots of people who are really very helpful. I dont know much about ruby.

"Ruby is difficult to deploy..."

That's simply not true, and I wonder why you think it is.

Setting up Passenger Phusion is snake simple, and deploying could not get any easier ("cap deploy", as one example).

You can also run your app using JRuby and deploy it to any standard Java app server as a war file. (Using JRuby gives you other benefits as well, such as speed and connection pooling, plus the use of every Java library.)

"Is it easier to find ruby people or pythoners?"

I've had trouble finding Ruby devs. And while I've never tried to find a Python developer I get the impression there are fewer Python devs in my area (Phoenix, AZ, USA) than Rubyists. When I talked to some people about trouble finding devs I was told it's a similar problem looking for Java or C# or PHP people.

#ruby-lang on freenode is a great place to get help. #rails, maybe not so much, though I'm basing that more on hearsay and comments from people I know. OTOH, #ramaze rocks, and would be my first choice for any new Web app. Less ceremony, full-featured, great + friendly community.

Bottom line, though, is that you should spend some time with each language, look at a few Web frameworks, and pick what makes you feel most comfortable.

I personally prefer Python and Django. Like hucker said, there is nothing wrong with the Python MySQL drivers (although I prefer PostgreSQL too). That said, it's a personal preference and Ruby on Rails is an outstanding platform. If your sysadmin has trouble deploying any one of them, hire a better one.

Both are great options. I am not sure where you heard that python has a bad MySQL provider or that Ruby is difficult to deploy. Even though those are opinions, I would highly disagree with both. I have worked with Rails (ruby), Django (python), Pylons (python), and now Pyramid (python). It really is a matter of opinion. You will find much more information about Rails and it is easier to get started with, but I have found that after a couple hours on a Rails project I am fighting Rails more than it is helping me. So it is a highly opinionated topic, but I personally prefer Python using the Pyramid framework. It does have a higher learning curve, but to me it is worth it.

Deployment of Django apps are becoming as easy as deploying Rails apps to Heroku. Two simular services for python in private beta are www.ep.io and www.gondor.io

Are you choosing a language or a framework? You should try both and play with both of their frameworks and take the path that feels right and gets things done most quickly initially. It's not one or the other. It's have tools in your belt and know how to use them.

I chose Ruby because of Heroku.

Rails has more plugins than Django. If you choose Ruby go for Rails. If Python have a look at Pyramid and TurboGears

Ruby with Heroku is tough to beat. It has worked very well. I'm using Padrino instead of Rails.

Ruby isn't at all difficult to deploy. There are plenty of hosts, and cheap hosts at that.

I tried Django in my early coding days, and I liked it at first. I tried Rails and switched immediately. I think it was the fact the Django used mostly Regular Expressions for routes, and Rails wasn't so over sophisticated. The pythonic semantics Django uses just seemed awkard to me when I was a beginner, and the ruby way Rails used seemed a lot easier to pickup.

If you are looking for community members, both ruby and python have large amounts of users, and active irc, as does both Django and Rails. Rails does seem to be more actively developed(to me) than Django. Django hasn't had a major release since v1.0.0, and Rails is on version 3.0.5.

That's just my 2 cents. Whatever you like better, and whatever fits the job, I would go with that one.

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