Ruby on Rails Appeals to PHP Programmers

I’ve been toying with Rails now for about a month (really only a few days if you count all the days I haven’t touched it). As a PHP programmer on OmniNerd, I must say that I like both the Ruby language and the Rails framework. There are some drawbacks, but they’ve seemed minor so far.

The key thing I’ve found with Rails is that it makes writing a new app fun in that you spend more time thinking about what you want to implement and not so much every little detail of how. For example, let’s say you’re writing some OmniNerd code and you need to be able to process the title of a person’s comment:

• PHP – I need to ensure there is a database table that stores the title of comments. I need to write an HTML form to accept the title and assign a text field a name. Using that name, I have to catch the POST varible after the submit and parse it to ensure it’s within the limitations of a comment title. If it was incorrect, I need to write functions to display an error message, re-post the form and fill in the fields with the old data. Once complete, I need to escape the input and put it in the database.
• Rails – I need to ensure there is a database table that stores the title of comments. I write a line or two telling Rails what a title looks like. I call a function to make a form. I call a function to handle errors.

… even a non-coder can see the hassle that’s removed. Multiply this situation by 100 and you see the great burden a framework like Rails offers.

To be fair, Rails is a framework and PHP is a language. Of the frameworks available for php, none appealed to me too much. We’ll see how it goes. If you’re a web developer, I’d at least write a simple app in Rails just to see what all the hype is about. I think you’ll enjoy it. If nothing else, be sure to flip through why’s poignant guide to Ruby. It’s quite entertaining.