Go and Rust are amazing languages, but why can’t they produce a Rails-like framework?
Is it just a matter of time before Go/Rust create a Rails-like framework, or is something fundamental preventing it?
Perhaps this article by Patrick Li (author of Stanza language) has the answers [1].
[1] Stop Designing Languages. Write Libraries Instead:
The Go community is more framework-averse, preferring to build things around the standard library and generally reduce third-party dependencies. Go also tends to be used more for backends, services and infrastructure and less for fullstack websites than Ruby/Python/PHP/C#.
The key to Rails is the Ruby language, it's very flexible. Someone were able to meta program Ruby code to the point that it was able to run JS code.
In my experience as someone that has been using Rust for a few years (and enjoys writing Rust) the biggest issue regarding adoption is that async Rust just isn't there yet when it comes to user experience.[2]
It works fine if you don't deviate from the simple stuff, but once you need to start writing your own Futures or custom locks it gets to a point that you REALLY need to understand Rust and its challenging type system.
[1] - https://github.com/m-ou-se/inline-python
[2] - https://blog.rust-lang.org/images/2024-02-rust-survey-2023/w... | (Full Survey: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2024/02/19/2023-Rust-Annual-Surve...)
I didn’t mean like embed another languages runtime, I meant that they monkey patched Ruby to the point that they where able to run Javascript syntax as if it was plain javascript code.
It didn’t have the js runtime embedded, it was all still Ruby. The point was to showcase how much you can flex and bend the language and turn it into whatever DSL you like.
I’ve been trying to find the video but can’t find it, I believe it’s from RubyCon.
It's the reason Ruby has been used to create so many DSLs too.
That creates the closest thing I've seen in the wild the Aspect Oriented Programming, as it was explained to me in grad school at least. The ecosystem is pretty incredible because of it.
I'm about as big of an Elixir fanboy as you'll ever meet, but I'm constantly mentally torn between Elixir and Rails as the best options for projects because of this aspect of Ruby.
If you ask about this in rust communities online, they will tell you they don't want something like this, that Actix etc do everything they need. I'm baffled! Maybe they're making microservices, and not web-sites or web apps?
Ruby, meanwhile, optimizes for programmer happiness and Rails optimizes for programmer productivity. What other language-framework ecosystem has the same values alignment?