Scoble on Rails
By Ryan Tomayko under First they ignore you.. on 18. July 2005David Heinemeir Hansson caught Scoble lusting after Rails and Django. I’ve been interested in understanding whether Rails is having the same impact on the .NET crowd as it is having on the Java crowd. If you’re coming from a .NET background, weigh in on Scoble’s comment thread.
The .NET environment seems more locked down than Java’s, which makes it harder for developers to wander outside of the vendor product line. Most people coming from Java have good experience with some form of Linux/Unix and associated tools so the LAMP/friends environment and conventions feel a bit more natural. Perhaps Udell’s advocacy of WAMP can put a chink the armor? I wonder how hard it would be to slap Ruby, Rails, and Ruby Gems or Django and Python into the WAMP click-and-install packaging. This would probably go a long way in getting people to take a look.
Anyway, this comes only a month or so after reports of a new Microsoft strategy to “extinguish LAMP”:
Having products that are engineered to work together–something open-source competitors cannot do–will ultimately make Microsoft products easier to run and more cost-effective over time, said Paul Flessner, senior vice president of server applications.
There you have it folks - we’re incapable of building “products” that work together. Being on Microsoft’s radar means that we’re going to have to be even more diligent in refuting baseless claims about our tools and processes. Luckily, they don’t seem to understand our core philosophy and, like most, see our approaches as quick-and-dirty rather than simple and elegant.
I have a feeling this is going to heat up over the next few months.
Jordan Cox:
Haha, speaking of Microsoft products and Microsoft Endorsed products that work wonderfully together… our server’s printing capability was trashed today by Microsoft Certified printer drivers. Exciting.
comment at 18. July 2005
Fredrik:
It is interesting that the .NET “answer” to RoR is MonoRail and Boo. Both open source projects.
Oh that’s right, they are not engineered to run together. :)
comment at 18. July 2005
Jake Tracey:
Jesus, it gets tiring to keep watching Microsoft publically shit on other products while their own implementations are complete tripe.
comment at 18. July 2005
PJ Hyett:
“I’ve been interested in understanding whether Rails is having the same impact on the .NET crowd as it is having on the Java crowd”
I wouldn’t call myself part of the Java crowd, but I used to be a Spring Framework fanboy, and I’m not exactly excited about continuing work on my J2EE webapp after experiencing the splender known as Rails. I’ve seen the light and don’t like working with less efficient tools.
comment at 19. July 2005
Rafe:
Unfortunately, the Microsoft guy also exposes the biggest flaw with Microsoft’s portfolio of products right now — tight coupling that prevents them from releasing software.
comment at 19. July 2005
Bill Higgins:
One thing I’ve noticed lately are companies (e.g. Source Labs) whose purpose in life is to verify the stability interoperability of particular OSS-based configurations. Though I don’t think this is necessary for all users of open source products, I think it will help the uptake from more risk-averse CIO types. This is good for OSS.
comment at 20. July 2005
Ryan Tomayko:
I agree Bill. Although I’ve talked about Zend and SourceLabs very little here, I think they’re very important in bringing LAMPish technologies to the enterprise for the reason you’ve mentioned. What I’m interested in seeing is whether the principles that drove the design and evolution of LAMP/friends will survive and continue to grow in that environment or if the business community will attempt to twist LAMPs roots in simplicity into more enterprise-like values.
comment at 20. July 2005
DougHolton:
Fredrik Lundh (above) doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about.
A .NET library works with any .NET language, not just boo but C# or VB.NET or the PHP compiler or IronPython or whatever.
Fredrik makes money off of supporting python software, and obviously feels threatened by anything he perceives as competition, such as .NET.
comment at 20. July 2005