From: Kirk Haines <khaines@...>
Date: 2005-11-19T01:53:02+09:00
Subject: Re: Snakes and Rubies?

On Friday 18 November 2005 8:02 am, James Britt wrote:
> Adrian Holovaty wrote:
> > Robert Klemme wrote:
> >><soapbox>Sometimes I get the impression that people are more busy
> >>*creating* web frameworks than actually *using* them.  One blink of the
> >>eye and ten new web frameworks sprang into existence...</soapbox>
> >
> > Actually, Django was extracted from Real-World Web sites two years ago
> > (lawrence.com, ljworld.com, et al). In its development, it's
> > consistently been designed to solve immediate real-world problems.
>
> Same goes for Nitro, I believe.

Each of Rails, Nitro, and IOWA are definitely used in real world applications, 
and at least with Rails and IOWA, the development is driven largely by the 
practical needs.  I'm less in touch with Nitro's development process, but was 
told the other day that there are a number of production applications and 10 
or so active users.  Certainly not a large crowd, but definitely enough to 
provide a good feedback cycle to shape the framework's practical development.

The same goes for IOWA.  I have around 60 of sites and/or applications in 
production with it myself, and have a similarly small but active group of 
users providing me with regular feedback and ideas for areas that need 
focused attention and development.

Some of this work, at least for Ruby, in the past, may have been theoretical, 
and I know that at least part of the incentive behind Wee was simply to 
explore other ways to do things, but now there are actual users behind Wee, 
too, each of these frameworks continues to exist and be used because they 
offer a practical solution to real world problems that people are faced with, 
and in turn those real world problems help drive their continued development.


Kirk Haines