Proliferation of web frameworks

C

Carl Youngblood

I don't know about you guys, but I'm starting to be overwhelmed by the
recent proliferation of web frameworks for ruby. I mean, this is really
cool and all, but there's a point at which it becomes difficult to
digest everything. I sometimes feel, after learning how to use one of
them, as if I've just bought the latest and greatest gadget, only to
learn that the Joneses already bought next year's model :)

Carl
 
P

PA

I don't know about you guys, but I'm starting to be overwhelmed by the
recent proliferation of web frameworks for ruby. I mean, this is
really cool and all, but there's a point at which it becomes difficult
to digest everything. I sometimes feel, after learning how to use one
of them, as if I've just bought the latest and greatest gadget, only
to learn that the Joneses already bought next year's model :)

Ahhh... choice... choice... so much choice...

http://weblogs.java.net/blog/kirillcool/archive/2005/01/
open_source_the.html

This anarchy cannot be tolerated any longer:

http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/graphics/book_stalincover2_full.gif

Just kidding. Get use to it. To the "abundance of prolific choices" I
mean :eek:)

Cheers
 
G

George Moschovitis

I don't know about you guys, but I'm starting to be overwhelmed by
the
...
learn that the Joneses already bought next year's model :)
well choice is a good thing, they say :)
George.
 
D

Daniel Berger

Carl said:
I don't know about you guys, but I'm starting to be overwhelmed by the
recent proliferation of web frameworks for ruby. I mean, this is really
cool and all, but there's a point at which it becomes difficult to
digest everything. I sometimes feel, after learning how to use one of
them, as if I've just bought the latest and greatest gadget, only to
learn that the Joneses already bought next year's model :)

Carl

Ok, now that I've figured out (again) how to include the original text
in a reply via Google Groups...

Designing a web framework seems to be one of those itches than many
programmers feel compelled to scratch. It happens in every language.
Dan
 
L

Lothar Scholz

Hello George,
GM> well choice is a good thing, they say :)
GM> George.

But only very few of them are a good choice, and thats a bad thing.
 
P

PA

But only very few of them are a good choice, and thats a bad thing.

Why? The fact that there are so much choice, both good and bad, force
you to make/take decisions. This is a positive thing by itself.

"experience, n.
The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old
acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced."

-- Some dead American dude

Cheers
 
D

Douglas Livingstone

Why? The fact that there are so much choice, both good and bad, force
you to make/take decisions. This is a positive thing by itself.

It might be more productive if there could be a way for people to more
easily contribute to frameworks, rather than feel that they had to
rewrite the same solutions for themselves, then releasing that
individually to give people greater "choice". Much like the
all-in-one-but-ugly Mozilla, vs the practically-nothing-but-extensive
Firefox. If I had that choice, I would take it - but I can't see it.
So the choice out there can't be good enough... guess I'll go and
start my own little framework with this in mind... or parhaps not.

Douglas
 
C

Carl Youngblood

Douglas said:
It might be more productive if there could be a way for people to more
easily contribute to frameworks, rather than feel that they had to
rewrite the same solutions for themselves, then releasing that
individually to give people greater "choice". Much like the
all-in-one-but-ugly Mozilla, vs the practically-nothing-but-extensive
Firefox. If I had that choice, I would take it - but I can't see it.
So the choice out there can't be good enough... guess I'll go and
start my own little framework with this in mind... or parhaps not.
That was kind of my thought. Choice is good, but perhaps all this
effort could be better spent improving existing code bases rather than
forking off new ones.
 
F

Francis Hwang

Why? The fact that there are so much choice, both good and bad, force
you to make/take decisions. This is a positive thing by itself.

Some people probably want some help in their decisions, and that's a
reasonable desire. In the "information market" of Ruby users, there's a
vital role to be played as intermediary--that is, to skip trying to be
the guy who wrote everybody's favorite WAF, and instead to be the guy
who writes cogent summaries of the choices to help everybody pick their
own.

I just Googled for an example of a post like this, and although there's
a somewhat informative Ruby-Talk thread
(http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/92222),
there appears to be no such blog entry that summarizes this.
(Mailing-list threads aren't enough on a topic like this, as they tend
to be extremely verbose.) If you are a Ruby blogger and are looking to
get more traffic to your site, you could probably boost your traffic by
writing an entry about what WAF you use, and why.

Francis Hwang
http://fhwang.net/
 
D

David Heinemeier Hansson

It might be more productive if there could be a way for people to more
easily contribute to frameworks, rather than feel that they had to
rewrite the same solutions for themselves, then releasing that
individually to give people greater "choice".

Actually, I think many are. I just did a quick count in the changelogs
for Rails. 78 different people has contributed code since I started
tracking it. So I think it could be a lot worse ;). We could have 78
other frameworks.
--
David Heinemeier Hansson,
http://www.basecamphq.com/ -- Web-based Project Management
http://www.rubyonrails.org/ -- Web-application framework for Ruby
http://macromates.com/ -- TextMate: Code and markup editor (OS X)
http://www.loudthinking.com/ -- Broadcasting Brain
 
G

gabriele renzi

Daniel Berger ha scritto:
Designing a web framework seems to be one of those itches than many
programmers feel compelled to scratch. It happens in every language.
Dan

actually, I think it's worth considering that some of the existing
frameworks were started when there was a bigger itch and little stuff to
scratch it (i.s., IIRC arrow, nitro, rails and the the continued IOWA
development from Kirk Haines all were internally developed before they
were announced).
 
J

John Carter

I don't know about you guys, but I'm starting to be overwhelmed by the recent
proliferation of web frameworks for ruby. I mean, this is really cool and
all, but there's a point at which it becomes difficult to digest everything.
I sometimes feel, after learning how to use one of them, as if I've just
bought the latest and greatest gadget, only to learn that the Joneses already
bought next year's model :)

Open Source Development moves very slowly, but on a very broad front.

However, once one project proves itself to be superior, then it can gather
an avalanche of momentum.

This proliferation is A Good Thing.

So is the massive weeding out and discarding of these projects as one or
two of them prove themselves.


John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
Tait Electronics Fax : (64)(3) 359 4632
PO Box 1645 Christchurch Email : (e-mail address removed)
New Zealand

"The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses
between the notes -
ah, that is where the art resides!' - Artur Schnabel
 
F

firestar

Take a look at the python side of things. The plethora of web
frameworks is confusing and contradicting the mantra of 'one way of
doing things'.

I hope ruby don't end up in this kind of situation.
 
R

Robert Klemme

PA said:
Why? The fact that there are so much choice, both good and bad, force
you to make/take decisions. This is a positive thing by itself.

Not necessarily: these frameworks are meant to make people's lives easier,
i.e. be more productive and thus faster. If it takes too much time to
make a informed decision about the best choice then there are definitely
too much options to choose from - or too little information that makes
deciding possible without trying out all options.

Regards

robert
 
Z

zimba.tm

Take a look at the python side of things. The plethora of web
frameworks is confusing and contradicting the mantra of 'one way
of doing things'.

I hope ruby don't end up in this kind of situation.

There is a difference, I think, in the ruby community. It is that it's
small enough so that everybody can participate :)

Btw there should be a new class of people after the hackers/coders, it
would be the "communicators" :p People who try to find similarities of
different frameworks and try to merge them if they are close enough.
And also "geographs", who build the map of technologies and how they
are related.

Hum..

Btw anyone wants to build something like python's Twisted in ruby ?
Cheers,
zimba
 
G

gabriele renzi

(e-mail address removed) ha scritto:
There is a difference, I think, in the ruby community. It is that it's
small enough so that everybody can participate :)

Btw there should be a new class of people after the hackers/coders, it
would be the "communicators" :p People who try to find similarities of
different frameworks and try to merge them if they are close enough.

well, I think this is actually done by the developer themselves. I.e.
You can often find comments from george moschovitis on the rails weblog,
and you can see Michael Neumann referring to IOWA and Og(from nitro).
The situation is not that bad, imo.
And also "geographs", who build the map of technologies and how they
are related.

Hum..

Btw anyone wants to build something like python's Twisted in ruby ?

why do you feel this need?
 
P

Phil Tomson

Take a look at the python side of things. The plethora of web
frameworks is confusing and contradicting the mantra of 'one way
of doing things'.

I hope ruby don't end up in this kind of situation.

There is a difference, I think, in the ruby community. It is that it's
small enough so that everybody can participate :)[/QUOTE]

But it appears that the Ruby community is experiencing (or is about to
experience) a growth spurt primarily due to outside interest in Rails.

I suspect the Ruby community will be a good deal larger than it currently
is by the end of this year (just a hunch :).
....well that's what we've wanted for the last few years, but are we ready
for it?

Btw there should be a new class of people after the hackers/coders, it
would be the "communicators" :p People who try to find similarities of
different frameworks and try to merge them if they are close enough.
And also "geographs", who build the map of technologies and how they
are related.

And reviewers/writers to try out and compare the different frameworks and
then write articles about the comparisons.

Btw anyone wants to build something like python's Twisted in ruby ?


Isn't Twisted kind of like drb? (I could be way off here)

Phil
 
M

Michael Neumann

gabriele said:
(e-mail address removed) ha scritto:



well, I think this is actually done by the developer themselves. I.e.
You can often find comments from george moschovitis on the rails weblog,
and you can see Michael Neumann referring to IOWA and Og(from nitro).
The situation is not that bad, imo.

Often it's easier to write a new application from scratch then
understand an existing one. By writing Wee from scratch, I learned *why*
Avi (who wrote both IOWA and Seaside/Borges) did the things in this way.
I used Avi's ideas and implemented them in Ruby how I'd implement them.

Regards,

Michael
 
P

PA

Often it's easier to write a new application from scratch then
understand an existing one. By writing Wee from scratch, I learned
*why* Avi (who wrote both IOWA and Seaside/Borges) did the things in
this way. I used Avi's ideas and implemented them in Ruby how I'd
implement them.

Beside "writing your own" as a learning experience, another thing not
to underestimate is the ludic aspect of all this. A lot of open source
project are simply for fun, not for profit nor "efficiency".

Sometime, even though there already exists uncountable "solutions" out
there, I just feel like writing my own as a hobbyist. Just because I
can :eek:)

Cheers
 

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