Aaron Johnson Now with 50% less caffeine!

Ruby on Rails in the Java community

Couple of months ago I attended the No Fluff Just Stuff conference up in Framingham, I took a bunch of notes which I intented to post to this blog, but never got around to it. The conference tag line is “The best value in the Java / Open Source conferencing space hands down” and I’d have to agree, although the emphasis on Ruby on Rails was surprising. Turns out that a number of the speakers who make their living consulting and writing books about Java have taken up Ruby on Rails and so maybe 25% of the sessions were about Ruby on Rails (the session by Dave Thomas was maybe one of the best conference sessions I’ve ever been too). I guess all this is to say that it’s not a surprise that the next ACM WebTech group meeting in Waltham is going to be about Ruby on Rails.

You also have to remember that the group of speakers there is a small group that constantly cross-promotes technologies among themselves. It is hardly surprsing to see 50% of the speakers there all umping on any fad technology of the day. When you further remember, that this small clique of consultants and writers who have an economic interest in making you think that you are missing out on some great revolution and that they are the tech messiahs who can save you, well it is hardly surprising to see how this plays out. (note: I’m not impugning anyones motives here. They are by and large sincere and honest people. I’m just saying that you have to take into consideration all the factors which might cause them to aggressively promote rails before assuming that they represent anything more than a small group of speakers who make a living promoting things)

So what is your take on Ruby on Rails? Seems like it’s the buzz but without knowing much about it I’m not sure what to make of it.

Now the perl folks have catalyst, an “inspired” framework. I’m wondering if the framework mania is legit, or if you think it is a fad (from your exposure).

You tend to do everything I want to dangit, many props for utilizing Subversion.