What's so great about Rails?

02 June 2009

It clearly organizes the mess of a web-application.  It's real easy to have a few giant code files that show the html and do the processing of a web application in the same file.  They are unreadable--it's like trying to extract a recipe out of a novel. Rails puts each type of file in an appropriate place given it's function; forces you to keep like methods together, and makes finding methods in other peoples projects predictable.

It automates stuff I don't need to know.  I don't know a lot about database calls, web servers, or the mechanics of email sending/receiving; but I can do all those in readable Ruby because of Rails.

It has easy plugins for new functionality.  Rails is open-source (free, and community improved) and so when programmers build something that can be re-used from project-to-project they frequently make a it a plugin that anyone can use. For example I need to interact with Google Maps, or Paypal in my application.  Well I can use someone else's code who has already done it without having to write and test those functions personally.

It reads so well

class Verse < ActiveRecord::Base

  belongs_to :chapter

  validates_presence_of :number, :on => :create, :message => "can't be blank"

end 

Summary.  What Rails does is takes web services and web applications and turns them into something that entrepreneurs, thinkers, designers, students, and business managers can build without going crazy or giving up.  That's huge.