I’ve lost track of the numerous amount of times that I have sat down and started to learn and build a web application with Ruby on Rails. I get excited about it just by reading any mention of the framework in a blog or tutorial and decide - again - that I want to learn it. But then I give up after a few hours because I figure that PHP can do the same thing, and I don’t even have to learn a new language.

But I still keep coming back to the same question; is developing a web app in Rails faster that developing the same thing in PHP?

Jesse Skinner seems to think it is. He just switched from PHP and wrote an article on his blog about his experience.

So I did it. I’ve been coding in Rails since the start of the month, and it’s been a great time. Sure, there was a learning curve. It took me some time to figure out how to do the simplest of things. But I read through the book, I experimented, I searched the web for answers, and now I’m cruising. I’m about 80% as good in Rails as I am in PHP, except with Rails everything takes half the time so in the end it’s actually faster.

What struck me most about the above quote, is the part in bold. Is it really faster to work with? Can’t I achieve the same thing with PHP and a good framework?

I have read a lot of info on Rails and what its advantages are, but I still don’t know these answers. So can anyone help me out here?

Shall I switch to Rails and why?

Why is it that no matter how many times I decide to use something else and no matter how hard I try to stear away from Rails when developing a new app, I come across a really cool Rails feature or idiom that just blows me away. Today, DHH and pals just released the eagerly anticipated Ruby on Rails version 1.2 and it includes some extremely impressive updates.

Things like REST support, respond_to and lots of little things that make life easier for a programmer are all included. It all looks so cool and so easy to use.

So why don’t I use Rails then? Because it would mean me having to learn Ruby - a whole new language. And that is just time that I do not have. But on the other hand, will it save me time to actually develop applications over something like PHP?

Oh I just don’t know. Do I take the plunge and spend the next few weeks learning Ruby, or do I block it out of my mind for ever and stick with good PHP and Cake???

HELP ME???

Even though I decided to stick with PHP for the foreseeable future, I still keep tabs on Ruby and Rails. This week, the official Ruby site got itself a much needed facelift. The old site was very dated and… what’s the word? … red! Well they still use red, but they got some blue aswell now.

It looks good and they have included a nice “Getting Started” section for us Ruby newbies.