From: Giles Bowkett <gilesb@...>
Date: 2006-10-09T02:32:26+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby vs. Rails

> > Does Rails require Ruby?
>
> Yes.

why?

> > Before I go any further I should point out that I have in fact been
> > banned from the Rails list, probably for loud and vituperative
> > criticism of the list itself, but possibly also for advocating sex
> > with goats. (I have since made an effort at apology, although it seems
> > to have been unsuccessful.) At any rate, that's one reason why I'm
> > posting this question here, rather than on the Rails list.
>
> Are you trying to apologise for that by proxy?  I fail to see what
> difference it makes mentioning it here, other than to attract sympathy
> from people who potenitally have no idea what the situation is about.
> But consider yourself absolved all the same if it helps appease your
> conscience.

well, thank you. but no, I'm not trying to apologize per se, I just
want to avoid any out-of-nowhere attacks from hostile Rails listers,
and explain one of my reasons for posting this here rather than there.
but thank you all the same.

> > Does anybody on this list have experience with any of the copycat
> > frameworks? Has your experience been detailed enough to include an
> > examination of the source code? If so, is it your opinion that Ruby is
> > a necessary component of Rails' success? Can you point to evidence in
> > the form of specific design decisions in competing frameworks?
>
> That's the wrong way around to ask the question isn't it? Something
> like Rails could easily be implemented in other languages; the author
> of it chose Ruby for his own reasons, no doubt.

put it another way, it appears to me, without having done in-depth
analysis on the numerous frameworks out there, that the best are
probably Rails and Seaside. Ruby and Smalltalk are similar languages,
so it's possible that, if Rails and Seaside really are the best, the
similarities in these languages could be significant and could be part
of the reason these frameworks succeed. but that leads to a question,
do the language differences lead to substantially different design
decisions? because if the similarities in the languages are part of
the frameworks' success, then evidence should exist within the source
code, and in particular, the similarities in the languages should
probably have resulted in similar design decisions which are elegant
in Ruby and Seaside but less so elsewhere.

but the possibility also exists that just saying "this and that are
the best" is superficial and misses the point, and the real point is
you choose particular tools for particular problems. for example, I
worked with a Rails guy recently who didn't want to use Beautiful Soup
(a Python screenscraper) because Python seemed too different from
Ruby. I disagreed, but it was his call. we benchmarked Rubyful Soup,
the Ruby port, but it was ten times slower than the Python version. so
he found a different Ruby screenscraper that was equivalent in terms
of performance with Beautiful Soup but less elegant in its use,
because it allowed him to stay within Ruby.

these kinds of questions, do we somehow bridge Beautiful Soup and
Rails, do we use Django or Turbogears for the Python intergration,
these are practical questions.

you might choose Django over Rails for a particular class of tasks. if
you re-implemented Django in Ruby, which parts of it would be
different upon translation, and would it still be preferable for the
same class of tasks? if you've ever read works in a foreign language
you know that certain literary nuances have a very difficult time
surviving translation.

-- 
Giles Bowkett
http://www.gilesgoatboy.org