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"My favorite part about node is that it isn't opinionated. It leaves the opinion to the community modules."

Node is not opinionated because it is not a framework; it is a JavaScript environment built on V8 and some common libraries. It would be much more appropriate to compare Express* with Rails than Node with Rails.

If you want to compare Node with something you'd be more correct comparing Node and its modules with Ruby and its gems.

* Even though, from what I can see, Express has more in common with Sinatra than Rails...

Express is more like Sinatra. It's largely syntactic sugar and some powerful extra features beyond what node's http module offers.

Express knows where its "opinion" ends and where it should make room for other modules with opinions of their own.

There really are two opinions at play here. Opinions of how to do something and opinions of what to do.

Express has opinions of how that differ from the http module (it even uses the http module to accomplish what it does).

Express has a minor opinion on what it should be doing and extends the what beyond the http module, but that's largely where it ends.

The problem with Rails is that it the domain of subjects it had an opinion on kept growing until it couldn't not have an opinion on stuff.

CSS versus SASS? I love Sass and used it before Rails added it. Rails didn't need to have an opinion here. Coffeescript? Same thing.

Maybe it is an unfair comparison because there's no equivalent to this much opinion about so many things in the Javascript world, except some Rails ports that people have made. And even they are seen by most as "Oh that's nice that you can get set up quickly in less than a day, but no thanks, I'd like to pick and choose what makes sense to me based on what I'm planning on building."

Had we known better maybe we would have gone with Sinatra back when we started.

Fair points.

Given what you've described I'd suggest you take just one more friendly unbiased look at Rails 3... and if after that it's still not your cup of tea then fair is fair. Maybe you won't choose to develop with it, but maybe you also won't choose bash it. It's pretty cool and I believe it was an attempt by Rails developers to address your very concerns. Most major components can now be easily swapped via Railties thanks to the decoupling efforts.

http://edgeapi.rubyonrails.org/classes/Rails/Railtie.html

Don't get me wrong. I really like Ruby, but I think Rails has become too all encompassing in places.

The architecture, like railties look pretty cool, but policy of constantly embrace and extend just leads to bloat that gets in the way when you're doing something more exotic than straight server-side CRUD.

"It's a values debate. I think opinion was the right value for the right time several years ago. We're going through a time of change where opinion is a liability not an asset."

I think this may be becoming more true everyday, but I still don't think we've come to the point where anyone has discovered The Way to do web stuff. Rails continues to introduce ideas that are interesting and important. Would CoffeeScript and Sass have received such rapid uptake if not for Rails? (Some of you may think that would be a good thing)

Both coffee script and sass were already were receiving massive uptake before they were included in Rails.

TDD as a cultural norm was Rails' biggest contribution. That was a good thing and was an opinion that few developers with argue with.

Does this mean it's time to fork?

This is a horrible issue with modern development. Basically we are getting into sectarianism. Don't like a doctrine of the Brethren Church? Fork and become the Grace Brethren. Don't like a small doctrine of the Grace Brethren? Fork and make the Conservative Grace Brethren.

I know that GIT and the like have made it really easy to fork and run, but does this fundamentally help? Does having X versions of some framework really make sense?

Why not go a different route and just give up the one side and make another? Rather than forking, make something new.

> I know that GIT and the like have made it really easy to fork and run, but does this fundamentally help?

Yes, it does. What ends up happening in practice is that forks are almost always short-lived. They either get merged with the mainline, they become the new mainline, or they die out. Occasionally, there are two self-sustaining projects that diverge from the same point of origin, but it's rare.

Yeah, I actually think that's the way to go if you don't like Rails, I was kind of joking. I am curious to see if there's enough passion for Rails itself that people would say, "no I want RAILS, even if it means making it something else" rather than just accepting a change in philosophy or moving to something else.

Personally, I think there's not. I think people either are sticking to Rails or they are not. I think even if you don't like the new Rails, it did help the development community at large. Before Rails, I don't know many web folks who were talking about TDD and MVC and real, honest, programming stuff.

Naw, if you work with Ruby, I'd just work on creating an ecosystem of interchangeable parts around Sinatra.