Ruby - coding language; Rails - the framework used to implement it.
Ruby vs PHP: What people are saying
"While PHP appears to be dominant today, the rapid growth in new projects in Ruby indicates that it is currently positioned as 'the language of the next wave of applications.'" - feld.com
"Not that one is better than the other, but PHP has a much more extensive library of extensions and modules, and it’s object oriented model has been implemented over time. Ruby on the other hand has been designed from the ground up as an object oriented language, and definitely has a very modern well thought out syntax." - nerd search blog
What Stephen says
Stephen is a software engineer friend at Viralogy building gnarly conversion rate optimization software.
Ruby on Rails is essentially the Mac to PHP's PC in terms of its elitist groupies.
SEO pro and business partner-in-crime, Dave A., is convinced that Ruby people drink the kool-aid. Web developer, not the news correspondent, Brian Ross, explained to us his take on the PHP vs Ruby holy war. There is a huge push in the tech world to convert to Ruby on Rails. Mid-twenty something hot-shot Ruby disciples are coming into existing start-ups, and attempting to indoctrinate the rest of the team. Brian (Mac-owner) thinks Ruby is very interesting and logical, but he's a PHP pro and prefers to practice what he already knows. Basically Ruby is a cleaner way of coding the same shit. With PHP, you are writing more lines of code to do the same thing. PHP's language library is more extensive, through Ruby's is rapidly increasing. Websites run faster on PHP, though I'm assuming some genius will soon figure out a way for Ruby scripts to run equally as fast. The effects of speed are minimal on less complex websites. If you're building a massive ecommerce site - and have massive scaling needs - you'd go PHP. If you want to get a concept up and running and easily maintain it - you'd go Ruby. Right?
I'm starting to figure out that it has less to do with the language as it does the people writing it. When it comes to finding a developer - the Ruby cats (for the most part) got talent. PHP anyone can learn, but few have mastered. The idea that Ruby is easier to maintain only holds true if you have people maintaining it well versed in Ruby. If you want someone new to come in to further develop your website, or maybe even just bring on an intern, chances are they will know PHP. Moreover, the Ruby people typically are already well versed in PHP. So stick with what you know, or follow the trend, it depends on the project and the people. Beware of those who preach one doctrine, the good guys are nimble and can see the benefits in multiple.
Verdict: Learn Ruby if you want to get in the boys' area.
PHP is NOT for scaling. Facebook has had numerous talks about how they've run into so many problems because of it. Java is made for scaling and maintainability. Ruby is about 20x slower than PHP. And PHP is about 20x slower than Java. Twitter was written in Ruby, not PHP. It was crashing so much they moved to *Scala. The front-end is still partial Ruby. Facebook is predomoninatly PHP with major building blocks in Java and C++ (the fast parts). Java is what every serious business uses now that isn't a start-up, because it takes longer to develop in, but start-ups usually have to move to Java once more developers come on board. Unless you reach Facebook scale, you will not have to worry about PHP. I'm actually building this new stuff in Java now. It's so... smooth.
*What's Scala?: It's a subset of Java. I actually LOVE the language. But it's brand new... like a year old. So there is very, very little support for it. There are seriously like... hundreds of people using it. and that's it. but it's very sexy.
What Mareza says
PulseJFK is currently rewriting its website in Ruby on Rails and a hot new version will be up shortly, according to entrepreneur friend Mareza Larizadeh.
Me: Cool. I hear Ruby is a cult, should I join it?
Mareza: Yes, join. Learn to code, then work with me :)
What David S. says
David is a New York Times web developer, blogger, cinematographer, and sometimes scholar.
I've met the Ruby freaks and to give them credit I've seen how fast they can pump out something really great. And I've also seen some of the nightmares that can come as the app grows. It is indeed easy to get something started, but you need smart people with real skill as it grows in complexity, it's not "easy" to run something that a million people want to look at RIGHT NOW.
What I've gathered*What's Scala?: It's a subset of Java. I actually LOVE the language. But it's brand new... like a year old. So there is very, very little support for it. There are seriously like... hundreds of people using it. and that's it. but it's very sexy.
What Mareza says
PulseJFK is currently rewriting its website in Ruby on Rails and a hot new version will be up shortly, according to entrepreneur friend Mareza Larizadeh.
Me: Cool. I hear Ruby is a cult, should I join it?
Mareza: Yes, join. Learn to code, then work with me :)
David is a New York Times web developer, blogger, cinematographer, and sometimes scholar.
I've met the Ruby freaks and to give them credit I've seen how fast they can pump out something really great. And I've also seen some of the nightmares that can come as the app grows. It is indeed easy to get something started, but you need smart people with real skill as it grows in complexity, it's not "easy" to run something that a million people want to look at RIGHT NOW.
Like a lot of guys I'm used to PHP, but in the newsroom the boys area all Ruby, so I've learned from them. [I think he was using "Ruby" as a verb here.] We did all the NYT Olympics stuff in Ruby on pretty short timelines. I wouldn't mind using it more.
Ruby on Rails is essentially the Mac to PHP's PC in terms of its elitist groupies.
SEO pro and business partner-in-crime, Dave A., is convinced that Ruby people drink the kool-aid. Web developer, not the news correspondent, Brian Ross, explained to us his take on the PHP vs Ruby holy war. There is a huge push in the tech world to convert to Ruby on Rails. Mid-twenty something hot-shot Ruby disciples are coming into existing start-ups, and attempting to indoctrinate the rest of the team. Brian (Mac-owner) thinks Ruby is very interesting and logical, but he's a PHP pro and prefers to practice what he already knows. Basically Ruby is a cleaner way of coding the same shit. With PHP, you are writing more lines of code to do the same thing. PHP's language library is more extensive, through Ruby's is rapidly increasing. Websites run faster on PHP, though I'm assuming some genius will soon figure out a way for Ruby scripts to run equally as fast. The effects of speed are minimal on less complex websites. If you're building a massive ecommerce site - and have massive scaling needs - you'd go PHP. If you want to get a concept up and running and easily maintain it - you'd go Ruby. Right?
I'm starting to figure out that it has less to do with the language as it does the people writing it. When it comes to finding a developer - the Ruby cats (for the most part) got talent. PHP anyone can learn, but few have mastered. The idea that Ruby is easier to maintain only holds true if you have people maintaining it well versed in Ruby. If you want someone new to come in to further develop your website, or maybe even just bring on an intern, chances are they will know PHP. Moreover, the Ruby people typically are already well versed in PHP. So stick with what you know, or follow the trend, it depends on the project and the people. Beware of those who preach one doctrine, the good guys are nimble and can see the benefits in multiple.
Verdict: Learn Ruby if you want to get in the boys' area.
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