"> Rails is something people either love or hate with a passion
I'm just one data point, but I'm not particularly passionate about any particular framework."
I am not a passionate hater of Rails, but I have a mild distaste for it and prefer to use Django unless there is a compelling reason to go with Rails.
In the early days deploying Rails was a complicated process (I hear things are better now) and that certainly contributed to my turning away from it, but the deeper influence on me were the people who were evangelizing it to me.
I was working at ThoughtWorks at the time and I noticed that the people who were all ga ga about Rails (and later JRuby) were people who didn't have much technical "street smarts" and spent their careers riding the latest bandwagon and overselling its benefits.
The people I really admired were much more cautious and skeptical and rigorously logical and measurement centric.
I am not sure I am expressing this well, but the local rails community turned me off it. The Django folks seemed much less fanboi - ish and more focussed on quietly getting stuff done.
On the one hand it doesn't make sense to abandon a piece of technology because it has an immature cultish community (or at least it felt like that to me. The ruby community always seemed better to me than the rails community), but on the other hand, other things being equal, life is too short to spend with people you think aren't thinking straight.
These days I just use Django and am happy with my choice. Of course this is all very subjective and doesn't reflect on Rails technically. I am just reacting to "hate with a passion". I don't hate rails, but I would rather not work with it if possible.
"> I was working at ThoughtWorks at the time and I noticed that the people who were all ga ga about Rails (and later JRuby) were people who didn't have much technical "street smarts" and spent their careers riding the latest bandwagon and overselling its benefits."
">I am not sure I am expressing this well, but the local rails community turned me off it."
You expressed it quite well.
I want to say, however, that was a pretty exciting time for many developers who were stuck in the painful jobs with PHP or Java. At that time two of the companies I worked for willfully jettisoned years of infrastructure in PHP based off the work some of the younger devs (including me) had snuck in with Rails (and Ruby). And it was quality, fast work.
If you had experience with Rails, you could stick out your thumb and get a fast train from the midwest to the Valley and get paid crazy money, too, because for some reason the business guys needed rails developers. The Rails conferences were a mix of pragmatic old school rubyists but also, many, many, young and talented devs, arrogant and quirky in the way young people are. Also there was a lot of free booze.
Of course, at the end of the day, we were all just software developers rallying around an slow language and imperfect framework, but it seemed like a lot of fun. I met some great people and worked hard and ended up the better for it.
I'm just one data point, but I'm not particularly passionate about any particular framework."
I am not a passionate hater of Rails, but I have a mild distaste for it and prefer to use Django unless there is a compelling reason to go with Rails.
In the early days deploying Rails was a complicated process (I hear things are better now) and that certainly contributed to my turning away from it, but the deeper influence on me were the people who were evangelizing it to me.
I was working at ThoughtWorks at the time and I noticed that the people who were all ga ga about Rails (and later JRuby) were people who didn't have much technical "street smarts" and spent their careers riding the latest bandwagon and overselling its benefits.
The people I really admired were much more cautious and skeptical and rigorously logical and measurement centric.
I am not sure I am expressing this well, but the local rails community turned me off it. The Django folks seemed much less fanboi - ish and more focussed on quietly getting stuff done.
On the one hand it doesn't make sense to abandon a piece of technology because it has an immature cultish community (or at least it felt like that to me. The ruby community always seemed better to me than the rails community), but on the other hand, other things being equal, life is too short to spend with people you think aren't thinking straight.
These days I just use Django and am happy with my choice. Of course this is all very subjective and doesn't reflect on Rails technically. I am just reacting to "hate with a passion". I don't hate rails, but I would rather not work with it if possible.