Django gaining or Rails waning? | Hacker News Reader

Django gaining or Rails waning?

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28 pointsfjabre37 comments

As someone who has used both frameworks extensively, I like to add an interesting tidbit:

Considering my Rails work: I visited rubyonrails.org only once, when I first heard about it - it's primary focus isn't as a resource site and I don't know any other Rails developers that use it as one.

Considering my Django work: I had djangoproject.com open practically all the time, every day, since it's a primary destination for everything related to the project.

I was going to agree with you, I almost never use the rubyonrails.org main site.

But I tried putting api.rubyonrails.org and apparently that also falls under the rubyonrails.org domain which I use quite a bit for rails dev.

There is some content there, for sure. I used gotapi instead of api.rubyonrails.org most of the time (they have other stuff there too, of course, which is handy). I have since switched to just looking stuff up in the source because I'm pretty familiar with it.

Agreed, never used the main site. Apidock.com is my main source for Rails info. Also I think some of the Ruby micro-frameworks may be gaining popularity.

I came across guides.rubyonrails.org just recently. It's actually very useful. If it was around when I was starting out I would have been there a lot.

As for the microframeworks, I'm with you. I don't build apps in Rails from day 1 anymore, I generally use Sinatra instead and sometimes (for smaller apps) there ends up being no reason to switch to Rails.

Spring gaining or Django waning? http://trends.google.com/websites?q=djangoproject.com%2C+spr...

Really, HN should be above this inanity.

Inane or not, you should be aware of the false analogy you've presented: rails is not obviously cyclical, as spring is.

springsource.org. framework website, not season.

Um, oops. Apologies.

That shortened URL and generic name got me. :(

There are more Python devs in the world than Ruby devs, so my read is that Python was simply artificially supressed for multiple years for lack of a user-friendly webdev toolkit; with Django, Python is both catching up and no longer bleeding Python devs to Rails.

Obviously, Rails and Django are also at different points on the hype cycle.

I recently started using Django for a personal project. I wasn't really aware there was hype around it.

I remember when it was launched that it had some hype as it was touted as a Rails alternative, but earlier versions like 0.95 were awful anyway.

It's a cool framework though. I like the plugins available.

There's been some hype as an indirect result of Google App Engine.

Maybe, but don't forget that there is also rubyonrails.com that you have to add on top (both are valid).

Also, rails.com is not as much a destination page as django.com. Most rails programmers rely on books to learn it and use API docs that are hosted on third party pages.

Why is this a competition?

It's a competition for jobs and influence within the industry. Nothing to sniff at.

That might be relevant if it actually reflected jobs available, but it doesn't, not even remotely (see my comments here for numbers: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=805931)

Note also that according to the trends graph, djangoproject's visitors have also been steadily declining over the past year.

not necessarily visitors, just searches.

"Daily Unique Visitors" is what the graph claims to show.

I agree, they both seem to be great frameworks, I've used rails and love it, and I've planned a project to learn Django with as it's peaked my interest.

Why can't we all enjoy the differences and enjoy them for different reasons? Do we spread ourselves too thin when we bounce around learning the basics of different frameworks? Or are we simply stocking our utility belt with more solutions to problems?

I don't think so... it seems like the centers of gravity are just shifting around a bit. Look at github:

http://trends.google.com/websites?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.djangop...

Keyword search trends: "Ruby on Rails" v. "Django": http://trends.google.com/trends?q=django,+%22ruby+on+rails%2...

Update: Yes, I know it's a rough estimate, and if you can find a way to do a more refined filter on Google Trends, please share it and make us all the wiser. "Python Django" doesn't provide good results for comparison.

Update (2): Filtered out some of the noise: http://trends.google.com/trends?q=django+-restaurant,+%22rub... -- still looking for a way to exclude the musician from results

I like and use Django, but thats a 100% wrong trend as about 50% of Django searches are searching for Django the musician.

How do you know that?

Look at the first graph (django vs rails)

Django the framework wasn't released until 2005. So if you assume the level of searches for "other django's" is consistent then about half of django's traffic isn't for the framework. You can almost tell when the framework was released by the upward trend in the graph.

Of course this is with a very rough visual analysis ;-P

But lots of people just refer to it as 'Rails' ...

Exactly ... when I'm searching for an aswer re:RoR, I don't think I've every included "Ruby on Rails" in my query.

I wonder why Russia scores so high in those. I've never thought we have any non-trivial number of rails activity.

Try adding "-Reinhardt" to filter some of the musician results out.

http://trends.google.com/trends?q=django+-restaurant+-Reinha...

That looks more realistic, but there's still a significant amount of noise pre-2005, which is when Django was released according to Wikipedia.

If you mentally subtract the fairly steady amount of traffic pre-2005, you'd have a pretty accurate estimate I would guess.

Django ranks much higher here in non-English languages and non-English speaking countries. The two search terms are ranking very close in SF and in English.

Regardless of how interesting the trends could be, there is still too much noise to draw any meaningful conclusion. (And yes, I also search "rails" not "ruby on rails" when left on my own.

This one squares with the way things seem to me:

http://trends.google.com/trends?q=ruby+rails%2C+django+pytho...

Rails slacking off, particularly as it gets more mature and in the middle of the Rails 3 refactoring. Django gaining some steam.

Or overall search volume is increasing driving them closer together. Useless graph without numbers of left axis.

Absurd to use either the site traffic or search term ranking comparison.

I will say, in san fran at most of the recent startup-y events i have attended rails has been far more represented than django. now this isn't scientific either by any stretch ...just a sense from real world engagement.

Add drupal.org on there to get a different idea. I would say that there is less money in custom web development so there is less interest in the tools all together.

I added Drupal in that mix as well and was pleasantly surprised. I disagree that there is less money in custom development though. All the Drupal developers (and I know a fair amount) I know are buried in work...

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