Posted by Curt Hibbs
Tue, 12 Apr 2005 07:00:00 GMT
Obie Fernandaz from ThoughtWorks has written a fan piece about Ruby on Rails. He obviously likes Rails a lot – I can sympathize with that! :-)
He makes a very strong statement when he says:
So the day that Gavin or JetBrains decide to write a rapid-application development framework like Rails, I might have to re-evaluate my stance, but for now you should expect Rails to reach critical mass by next year and completely overwhelm the Java web application market in both mindshare and talent pool by the end of the decade.
A lot of things can happen by then end of the decade, and I will certainly be happy if Rails, or something even better has the dominant mindshare by then. But the part that really got my attention, was the idea that the shift to Rails is being driven not just by Java developers looking to reduce complexity and increase productivity, but also by designers who are abandoning PHP (and similar) solutions for Rails. He characterizes this as a historic confluence, and he just may be right:
The design people have better tools than anyone else. These guys can understand elegance of design, both visually and expressed as patterns in code. Right now masses of these types of developers are pouring into the Rails community from the PHP (and similar) communities. They bring with them considerable design and usability skills that complement their programming sometimes elementary abilities. They are introducing kick-ass AJAX components and eye-candy that are being incorporated into the standard Rails toolset as we speak. The nubys that do not have OO programming experience are being helped by Ruby old-timers and the other significant group of developers streaming into the Rails community: senior Java developers looking for something better that what we have to deal with now. This is a historic confluence of talent that will continue to grow and synergize.
But please don’t just read my quotes, go read the entire article—its worth it. If his unabashed enthusiasm for Rails is too much for your taste, try to see past the proclamations of revolution and see the trend and influences on that trend that he has identified. I’m definitely onboard with that.
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Posted by Curt Hibbs
Tue, 12 Apr 2005 07:00:00 GMT
My faith is (partially) restored now that Smuckers attempt to patent crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwiches has been rejected!
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Posted by Curt Hibbs
Mon, 11 Apr 2005 07:00:00 GMT
Manning Publications just asked if I would be interested in writing a book on Rails. This is the third offer I have received. O’Reilly asked me a couple months ago, and the Pragmatic Bookshelf last year (well… in all honestly, I approached Dave Thomas on that one). This is certainly flattering, and I really would love to write such a book.
However, after talking last year with Dave Thomas and David Heinemeier Hansson about doing a Rails book for the Pragmatic Bookshelf, I did some honest assessment of my available time and what I wanted to accomplish in 2005. I decided that writing a book would require me to give up most of the other goals that I had for 2005, so I decided to leave the book writing to others. I’ll stick to writing shorter articles (I have another article for ONLamp.com that is in progress).
If anyone here is interested in writing a Rails book for Manning, let me know and I’ll pass your name on. Even if you don’t have any Rails experience, you could use this as a reason to get into Rails (that’s one of the reasons why Bruce Tate signed on with O’Reilly to write their Rails book).
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What is wrong with our patent system!
Posted by Curt Hibbs
Fri, 08 Apr 2005 07:00:00 GMT
The problem with software patents has been well discussed. But I had thought that in other areas the patent system was working (at least marginally) alright. Now I just read this news item about a Sony patent that just based on an idea—nothing was actually created, researched, or produced! It was merely a thought inside someone’s head!
How can they get a patent like this? What is wrong with our patent system?
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Posted by Curt Hibbs
Fri, 08 Apr 2005 07:00:00 GMT
Since there are not enough hours in each day to keep up with all of the technical reading I want to do, I had essentially stopped reading fiction. But recently I started listening to audiobooks as I drive back and forth to work. Its a great way to “read” all that fiction that I’ve been missing.
Science fiction has always been my favorite, and I recently finished Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. This was a great book and since its the first of a seven book series (soon to be eight), I’m looking forward to “reading” the rest of them.
Well, quite by accident, I just stumbled across a short essay that Orson Scott Card wrote in 1995 titled How Software Companies Die. Its speaks the essential truth about programmers and management in a very funny way. Here’s the first paragraph:
The environment that nurtures creative programmers kills management and marketing types – and vice versa. Programming is the Great Game. It consumes you, body and soul. When you’re caught up in it, nothing else matters. When you emerge into daylight, you might well discover that you’re a hundred pounds overweight, your underwear is older than the average first grader, and judging from the number of pizza boxes lying around, it must be spring already. But you don’t care, because your program runs, and the code is fast and clever and tight. You won. You’re aware that some people think you’re a nerd. So what? They’re not players. They’ve never jousted with Windows or gone hand to hand with DOS. To them C++ is a decent grade, almost a B – not a language. They barely exist. Like soldiers or artists, you don’t care about the opinions of civilians. You’re building something intricate and fine. They’ll never understand it.
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Posted by Curt Hibbs
Tue, 05 Apr 2005 07:00:00 GMT
Did you ever have this vague feeling that something is not quite right but you can’t figure out what it is… and then somebody just comes out and crystallizes the whole thing in front of your eyes? The quick dismissal of new ideas with vague meaningless reasons has always bothered me and I’ve had this feeling that there have been trends and fashions in doing this that I could not quite articulate.
Well, David Heinemeier Hansson just did this for me in his Maturity is the new ‘does it scale?’ posting. I think he hit the nail squarely on the head with this one. There’s nothing wrong with asking questions about maturity and scalability. The problem is when someone just vaguely asserts that something is immature or doesn’t scale as a false cover for something else.
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Posted by Curt Hibbs
Tue, 05 Apr 2005 07:00:00 GMT
If you’re looking for hosting for a Ruby on Rails web app, no doubt you’ve heard about TextDrive. TextDrive is a good host provider that knows Ruby and Rails inside and out. But TextDRive is not the only game in town and I want to draw you attention to Planet Argon.
Planet Argon hosts this blog, and is an inexpensive hosting service that also knows Ruby and Rails very well. Even better, if all you want is a Ruby on Rails based blog, Planet Argon can provide that for only a few dollars a month—that’s the software that runs this blog: Typo. Typo is a Rails app. Once it is installed, you can customize it to your hearts content. This is a great way to get into Ruby and Rails programming in a very personal way!
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Posted by Curt Hibbs
Mon, 04 Apr 2005 07:00:00 GMT
I just updated my blog posting Support for 10x Productivity Increase with Rails! to mention that Justin Gehtland had finally posted measurements comparing his project’s Java and Ruby on Rails implementations. Now less than an hour later I find that Slashdot has picked this up with the usual lively discussion.
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Software Development is a "Full Brain" Activity
Posted by Curt Hibbs
Mon, 04 Apr 2005 07:00:00 GMT
Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas (of Pragmatic Programmers fame) just published the first of an interesting series of articles that are to explore the process of software development. This first article is titled Cook until Done and presents contrasts the an essential difference between novice developers and experienced practitioners in software development.
If you get a chance to attend on of the No Fluff, Just Stuff symposiums and see Dave’s Herding Racehorses, Racing Sheep presentation, you’ll recognize this article as one of the many thoughtful points contained in the presentation.
I’m looking forward to future installments in this series!
Posted in software development | no comments
Posted by Curt Hibbs
Wed, 30 Mar 2005 08:00:00 GMT
After being repeatedly prodded by my colleagues to start a blog, I started to do so about a week ago… but I didn’t tell anyone about it. I wanted to try it privately for a while.
The reason I am going public with my blog is because I feel compelled to respond to David Heinemeier Hansson’s latest blog post, The State of the Mac. I would have preferred to post a comment on his blog, but he is no longer allowing comments.
In this post David is pretty heavy-handed and judgmental, implying that developers who choose platforms other than the Mac (but especially if they use Windows) have an automatic black mark against them that they will have to overcome if they want to work for “rising star” companies like 37signals.
Now let me say that I have tremendous respect for David and what he has accomplished with Ruby on Rails, both from a technical and evangelical standpoint… its nothing short of amazing! But, I personally find the position taken in this blog post and David’s subsequent comments to the blog post to be so arrogant that I have to believe that it was unintentional. I wait anxiously for some public comment that will support this belief.
The bottom line is that what we as developers use for our development platforms and tools is a very personal choice, born from our unique personal and professional circumstances. I would never presume that what is the right choice for me, has to be the right choice for you, too.
Some developers are single with high paying jobs, others have families struggling to make ends meet with more than one kid in college. Some developers like to build their own machines, others may abhor the thought of fixing their own hardware. Some people like developing software 100+ hours a week (usually the ones without families), while others have multiple passionate interests.
The above examples barely scratch the surface of the influences on a developers choice of development platforms. These are personal choices and personal circumstances… they are neither good nor bad.
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