After working with Rails for a few months now, I realized that my first Rails site, Tastebud, was really not written in a “Railsish” way. I started rewriting it a few days ago, and then got really frustrated with my code. I ended up switching to Django.
It makes sense to me, as the site is a one publisher deal. The overhead of maintaining two sites (a backend site and a frontend site) was irritating to me. If I was trying to build some sort of social network of food tasters, I’d have stuck with Rails, but the focus of the site is a selfish recounting of wines and cheeses we’ve tasted.
So there.
Also, the focus is changing up a teeny bit. The front page is now the “blog.” This is a lead in for some stuff we’re going to be trying over the next couple of weeks. I don’t want to talk it up too much, so we’ll just leave it at that. It’ll be a fun surprise.
Chris, Was this your first Django creation? I’ve been scanning through your archives and have noticed that you’ve been at least watching Django for a while now. What are your thoughts on Django and Python versus Rails and Ruby? I know this is a huge question and a well debated topic, but I enjoy your opinions and would love to hear what you have to say. Drop me a line if you get a chance.
Cheers!
Hi Adam,
This was my second. I also wrote http://victimoftime.com in Django. I have a few smallish apps running on Rails at http://www.chicagoimprovapiary.com and some internal stuff at work. I like both frameworks a whole lot. Either one can handle a large website well. For me, Django is really great at publishing apps, kind of “push” apps. Rails is great at particapatory apps. This is a wild generalization, but it’s where I draw a distinction between the two frameworks.
As for Ruby v. Python…as of late, I’ve been writing a lot more Ruby than Python. I like Ruby a lot. It has the “oh neat I’m a wizard” feel of Perl with the readability of Python. I’m a big fan. The languages are pretty similar though, so it’s really just what I’m in the mood for when starting a new project.
Chris
Thanks for sharing.
I’m in the middle of learning Python right now, so Django is very appealing to me…it makes sense and is very fast. I’ve thought of picking up Ruby, but am slightly intimidated by the community (though I’ve never participated - just speculation from reading what others are saying). Also, I feel the documentation for Django is A+ where I find Rails documentation sparse and scattered. After I have a good grasp on Python, I hope to jump on the bandwagon of Ruby…a little late. I think both languages are readable and easy to work with. This is coming from a C++ background…that’s probably why I’m loving Python so much (it does all the stupid stuff for you). =)
Are there any paths to learning Ruby that you would suggest taking…as well as Rails after that (resources, etc)?
The Pragmatic Programmers have a bunch of good Ruby and Rails books, http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/
I bought “Agile Web Development with Rails,” “Programming Ruby (the Pickaxe book)” and went to town.
As for the two communities…both are very cool, and willing to help out new folks. The Ruby folks are flying high right now with a lot of attention, but at their core they’re really interested in getting people to use their favorite language.