Why We Wrote our Blog using Rails | Hacker News Reader

Why We Wrote our Blog using Rails

gaslight.co

11 pointscdmwebs9 comments

I'm a Python developer, and I've been deciding whether fighting the awful syntax of Ruby [1] and the complexity of Rails is worth the effort. I'm divided, because it looks like an awful mess that will take a long time to learn, but a lot of YC companies use it and a lot of HN'ers swear by it.

Is there a reason you didn't build your blog using Python (presumably with Flask or Django or the like), other than your existing familiarity with Rails?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5872899

Nope, that's it. We do have experimental internal apps we build in other languages, but most of our work is Rails apps.

I don't want to sound like a douche, but It looks to me that you did it to prove you eat your own dogfood. If you were so unhappy with Tumblr, why didn't you just use another blogging platform or software? There are many alternatives in almost every language known to man.

Because of the reasons in the post, but mainly our design team. I didn't want to set up a WordPress instance and make them learn the intricacies of php and WP theme system. They already understand the Rails folder structure, Sass, Haml and all the other tools we use.

tl;dr: it made collaboration easier.

I'm going to agree on your point as well. Designing with things like WordPress, Tumblr, etc become a major pain quickly. Especially considering the speed at which you can design with a bare rails app.

My company is considering the same thing. It's just too much of a pain using other tools, especially in regards to design.

It could be said that for a consultancy, your marketing/blog is a core part of your business, so having a high degree of control over branding would make sense.

Plus, using Wordpress is the last thing I ever want to do. Ever.

It's painful. I hoped that an engine existed, but nothing fit our workflow. This seems like a good starting point, though. Maybe we'll convert to an engine and see how reusable it might be.

An engine would make some sense. I'd be interested in collaborating if you decide too: https://github.com/danawoodman

Another point to add is that running the podcast feed from Tumblr was not practical. Even other big podcasts that use Tumblr generally generate their own custom feeds. Now we can bake that right into the blog... as soon as I get around to it :)

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