Rails can make you a better programmer!
September 23, 2007
More and more programmers are switching from legacy languages to Ruby on Rails. Our own Big in Japan team works exclusively in the rails programming framework. Derek Sivers dumped PHP two years ago in favor of Ruby on Rails. Yesterday he wrote a post titled, "Seven reasons I switched back to PHP after two years on Rails." Derek switch from PHP because his PHP code looked like crap. Over the past two years Rails Derek realized he had become a better programmer. Turns out his PHP code didn’t have to look like crap, his new PHP code looks great. Did PHP get better or did he? He explains,
Rails was an amazing teacher. I loved it’s “do exactly as I say” paint-by-numbers framework that taught me some great guidelines. I love Ruby for making me really understand OOP. God, Ruby is so beautiful. I love you, Ruby. But the main reason that any programmer learning any new language thinks the new language is SO much better than the old one is because he’s a better programmer now! You look back at your old ugly PHP code, compared to your new beautiful Ruby code, and think, “God that PHP is ugly!” But don’t forget you wrote that PHP years ago and are unfairly discriminating against it now. It’s not the language (entirely). It’s you, dude. You’re better now. Give yourself some credit.
Turns out Rails might be a great framework to adopt, but it might be a great way to improve your programming skills in any language. My thoughts: If you are a manager it is much easier to manage resources coding using Rails.
