Rails Recipes and more

12/14/2005

Given the sudden and growing popularity of Rails, we’ve got a lot of people writing in wanting more.

So I’m pleased to announce a new Pragmatic Bookshelf title, Rails Recipes (ISBN: 0-9776166-0-6) which will be published in the spring. We might even release it as a beta book if you ask nice.

There was just an editorial in the latest Java Developer’s Journal where the author said he was goign to sit on the sidelines and wait before looking at Ruby on Rails. He reasoned that it was over-hyped, he had a job already, and that all programming languages were basically the same. You say potatoe and I say potata.

Well, he got 2 of the 3 wrong. Sure, Rails is being subjected to a lot of hype at the moment. But that’s not hype generated from some Fortune 500 marketing machine, it’s hype generated by developers who are genuinely excited at a more productive working environment.

As to already having a job and not needing to keep up with the cutting edge, well, no one’s job is as secure as you think. Complacency is a recipe for disappointment, at best. Read My Job Went to India: 52 Ways to Save your Job or Flat Earth or any other source on current events and you’ll realize that the times they are a-changing, and sitting on the sidelines is not really a good option for your career.

Finally, the author seems to think that all programming languages and environments are alike. That is so not true. The reason Ruby is so popular (and is becoming increasingly popular, outstripping Python book sales through O’Reilly), is because it IS DIFFERENT. It stays out of your way much more so than other languages.

Is it perfect? No, of course not. But it can make you much more productive, more quickly. JDJ says that clients shouldn’t care what language a project is written in, and that’s true on the surface of it.

But they might care very much that they can get the project delivered in a few weeks instead of a few months. That’s one of the advantages of Ruby and Rails, and one that you can use as a competitive advantage against all those folks sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what really happens next.

And these days, you need every advantage you can get.