Its a new year. As with every new year in the past, it is good and refreshing to start it with something refreshing. So I got myself a little dedicated server and rolled a cool Ruby on Rails setup on there all in the name of “research”. I’ve set it up to run a Typo blog (which is the preferred blogging platform for me at the moment), running behind Apache 2 and a sweet little Mongrel cluster. Nifty!
I know that somepeople have warned against running “scattered” blogs, but it is kind of the only option when wanting to experiment with different platforms and languages. So why not. Maybe there could possibly be a use for not rolling everything into one single blog.
So for the next couple of months (hopefully), I will be blogging with a multiple personality. I’ll give some views later on over there on how I find Typo. It would be pretty hard beating Wordpress…
So, please, visit me every once in a while over here: http://stii.co.za
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Every programming language seem to have some sort of Ruby on Rails like framework. PHP got a couple lot. Python got Django (Django is not Rails though). Now the BBC went and made a Rails-like web framework with PERL.
This I found quite amusing:
“Like most organisations the BBC has its own technical ecosystem; the BBC’s is pretty much restricted to Perl and static files. This means that the vast majority of the BBC’s website is statically published - in other words HTML is created internally and FTP’ed to the web servers. There are then a range of Perl scripts that are used to provide additional functionality and interactivity.”
Their sites are statically published?! I did not know that and find it quite, uhm, shocking that a big organization would have such a primitive way of publishing their sites.
“For applications that run internally we use Ruby on Rail. Because we enjoy using it…”
No surprise there.
They built PERL on Rails because:
“We need to use Perl, there are restrictions on which libraries can and can’t be installed on the live environment and we needed a framework that could handle significant load.”
Now I’m just wondering, are they planning to release the source code, or is it going to stay an internal framework exclusive to the BBC? Should be quite interesting to see it and experiment with it. No-one knows yet. This part of their site is powered by PERL on Rails, they say.
They would almost certainly have to change the name. When PHP on Rails first saw the light, it was quickly slapped with a lawyers letter and had to change its name. Now known as PHP on Trax.
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I’ve just listened to the Ruby on Rails podcast where they interviewed Avi Bryant from Seaside, which is a web framework developed in Smalltalk. I’m no Smalltalk guru, but I know it is quite a mature object orientated language so it does sound very interesting! Specially due to the fact that the framework not only eliminates SQL, but also the HTML! That and the fact that it allows for developing modal components on the web, much like you would for windows or osx. It all sounds extremely exciting and interesting, but I would probably not have any opportunity to play with it anytime soon! If you have or do get the opportunity, please let me know what you think!
You can listen to the podcast on odeo, or download the mp3 here.
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Apart from the free Sitepoint book (which expires soon! So hurry up and get it) and the book “Agile Web Development with Rails” you have to bookmark Railscasts. Railscasts is an extremely useful resource with screencasts of how to get some pretty awesome things done in Rails. There is currently 78 casts on various specific topics and every single one is more useful than the next. I really enjoy it and I honestly love the idea of watching how to get things done while at the same time it is explained in detail. Check it out:
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The people at Sitepoint has released their Ruby on Rails book for free for a limited period of time! The offer expires in 40 days at the time of writing this and if you are interested in learning RoR you should go and get it. Hop on over and download your free copy.
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This is funny. Seriously, I enjoyed this! It might be a rip-off of the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads, but it is still very funny nonetheless! I’m sure Rails and Python folks would like this vid by the Railsenvy guys.
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Nic Coyne is in need of a RoR developer down in Cape Town. He is even willing to take on good PHP developers who would be interested in learning Rails and teach them Rails development!
That is SUCH an awesome opportunity! So if you know of any developers with a passion to learn new things, this seems like an opportunity of a lifetime! I do not know what is on offer, accept for a great experience, so if you are interested, get hold of Nic through his blog here.
I’ve checked out Aptana a while ago and although it is extremely strong on the Javascript and HTML side, it sucked if you needed to do stuff in any programming language other than Javascript. Radrails was a free Ruby on Rails IDE. Better than your average commercial products I must say, but lacking in a few areas since it was a “young” project. Oh, and both were powered by Eclipse. A lot of people have mixed feelings about Eclipse…
Now an extremely interesting co.lab is happening! Radrails and Aptana joined forces! w00t!! Both these guys were on the right track, but they both lacked “something”. Joining forces might make that “something” disappear! I am really, REALLY going to enjoy checking this one out as SOON as I have time on my hands. I might even venture doing my first Rails project… who knows?
Just so you know, I have not yet fired it up and checked it out! Will tell you more later once I’ve done just that, but for now this is just too an exciting co.lab to keep it quite!
I recently commented like a super-cowboy on devkungfoo’s blog. I made the following (stupid|hot-headed) statement:
I’m considering writing my next big project from scratch, steering clear from any frameworks for now.
Believe me if I tell you that its been on my mind for most of my holiday. I should really learn to think before I shoot my mouth off like some MG42 (I’m playing Call of Duty 3 ) machine gun!
Let me explain. With the coming of Web 2.0 there has been a lot of focus on MVC (Model-View-Controller) development frameworks. What makes them special is that they follow some very important development principles like the DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) principle and they do Database abstraction GOOD! They also encapsulate a lot of standard functions in a “tool library” (if I may call it that) that makes software development quick. Really QUICK. They also separate your data (Models) from your logic (Controller) and your HTML (Views). So all in all, I do not for the life of me know why I made such a comment! MVC’s are great and should be used. To redevelop from scratch, although very novel and brave, is somewhat stupid. Yes, I know I’m contradicting myself something awful, but I’ve been known to do that due to my bloody motormouth.
Last year I spent a lot of time researching a bunch of MVC frameworks. I first of all looked at Ruby on Rails which is arguably one of the best frameworks out there. The cons of this frameworks for me was:
Its new and most ISP’s do not support it. Our ISP said the only way they’ll host it is if we farm our own server at them and maintain/install it ourselves. Now that seemed like a fun and interesting prospect at the time, but time was the major constraint!
The other point is that it is a new language which I needed to learn. Also a time constraint issue, although they have a GREAT thing called InstantRails for Windows that do the entire setup process for you! So I have played with it and would definitely look at doing some projects in future using RoR. Ruby is a wonderful language!
Another great MVC framework written in Python and well worth while checking out if you can develop in Python is Django. But the same goes for Django that goes for Ruby on Rails.
I then decided to look at what is available in PHP since I’m proficient in it. Was I pleasantly surprised! There are hundreds of frameworks! All flavors and for all versions of PHP. Lovely! I still found that there is quite a learning curve involved in these PHP frameworks and although I know PHP like the back of my hand, I have to learn how to implement things utilizing the framework to its full potential!
I ended up singling out two frameworks: CakePHP and Code Igniter.
CakePHP is considered the Ruby on Rails of PHP. A great and extremely powerful framework it is, but I found it a bit clunky and big and in some instances simply overkill!
Code Igniter on the other hand is extremely lightweight and flexible and a whole lot simpler to learn. It lacks in certain aspects as at the time it had no AJAX support, but including AJAX was not a big issue as it was easy enough to do.
So, out of the frameworks, Code Igniter is the one to use for small to medium sized projects.
) machine gun!
