Ask HN: RubyOnRails or Django/Pylons?

What I really, really should have done was write a thin wrapper over the existing Redis code implementing the three methods I typically need my cache stores to support (read, write, fetch -- that's it), then configured the cache stores on class load from a YAML file. This would have gotten me done in an hour.

Instead I tried spelunking deep into the dark recesses of Rails 2.3.10, how it loads environments and initializers, and two gems to figure out what was going on... and very nearly had to postpone shipping because of it.

Don't do that.

But when I'm doing things the Rails Way, yeah, pretty much peaches and cream. I've never had an issue with writing arbitrarily complex Ruby code to do things that are not in the "typical web application" purview.

Yeah, I explicitly said ROR there because its the web framework which is annoying when you want to ship. I think the language is pretty neat actually, 'cept doesn't have as many libs.

>But. If you have even the slightest difference of opinion with Rails as to how to handle a request or represent the URL parameters you're getting from browsers, you're in for a world of hurt.

Yeah, sometimes that "way rails thinks you should" is considerably more complicated than what you'd have to do on a PHP or Djagno project to just get that last mile in. I'm currently finishing up a iOS SDK/library that talks to both a rails and django backend, and while the ROR dev is more available, he often has to figure out the right ways to change things that the Django guy just splats out if he has to(and cleans up after we're integrated). The ROR solutions are often frustratingly complicated (want to add a field to this view? Naw you can't, we have to instead change the datamodel of that object and sorry we can't name this that thing you already put in the client, etc). We don't care about long term whatever this week. We just want a certain URL scheme and certain output to happen NOW so we can integrate the last couple chunks in before our announced press event hits us, then backfill with quality code at that URL later. It might just be I know the ruby dev better, but he seems he's probably the better programmer of the two as well (but I don't know the Django guy well).

Sure the rails methodology might be better if you are the type of the person who doesn't do things the right way when you're not forced to , but if you are the type who does things correctly, the Django is no more correct or less correct and canonical, except for those instances when where you just have to finish. So if we're adults, we can write good code most of the time and good enough code when we have to and get away with it on Django. On rails, yeah right. There was a Plone developer who said something once like "Python believes we're all consenting adults". I feel python web frameworks do, and ROR doesn't. (link to the AWESOME talk:http://www.archive.org/details/SeanKellyRecoveryfromAddictio...)

If I wanted bureaucracy, I'd go do a java serverlet. Rails feels more like religious doctrine enforced in code than bureaucracy, but it has that stink of java's "thou shalt use the X to do the Y or DEATH AND INFAMY will result". It's not an overwhelming stick mind you, but a slight odor.

Ruby on Rails DOES work. It just is frustrating in that it does not allow shortcuts, ever. Therefore, I feel it keeps you away from your kids before a commitment, where Django doesn't. I'm not saying "don't ever use it", and I dont' think people who KNOW rails will get enough out of swapping to do the swap, but if you know neither now, I'd go python/django.

Then again, if you're new to programming, the copious beware/here be dragons of ROR might be a better path to get used to not slacking.

Know what else is opinionated? Ruby on Rails. (This is quoted widely on the web, by Rails devs!)[http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8...]

I'm not criticizing ruby, I don't have any issue with it (I'd still go python over ruby, cause I'll take libraries over pretty close but slightly better syntax any day). But ROR can get in your way when it's times to ship as I've explained several times in this thread. Its opinions get in your way when you want to do something it thinks is bad. This is an issue when you want to get work done sometimes.

I don't think the guy is damned to hell if he uses ROR or anything, I just think unless he's a guy who can't make himself (or his teammates) follow the rules when he doesn't have to, he has a stronger product more adaptable to development realities with Django.

You're 9.5 weeks into a 10 week project. Some changes need to be made to a view cause a race condition was found in a load in the client application that talks to your framework.

If you're a rails guy, and you get the feature request, you go "What do I have to change to fix that" <time passes> "Magic happend, it all works". You don't really have the ability always to twiddle the current output in some random way required to just get the comms working with the client and the system incrementally integrated with the world.

If you're the django guy, you go" Let me stick the output you want for now in the view, okay, does that work? cool I'll add some dynamic stuff, Okay cool, does it still work, I'll go do that the right way".

If you work in a position where you sometimes need to do the second one, but largely can behave like an adult and follow the correct ways to do the rest of the time, Django will be more rewarding to you than Rails, as you can get away with building that last mile out of earwax and sticky tack if you want to on Django, but on rails, you really have to used that same deliberate hand carved ivory you used everywhere else.

Which project is going to be purtier when you're done? Rails for sure! Which one is going to be easier to expand off of? Probably rails will take less time to get to the next version, as there will be no cleanup time to take out the sticky tack. Can you hack the crap out of something when you need to pop something out the door for the demo tommorrow? It really really varies upon what the hack is you need to pull. With Django it doesn't. That's the issue. That's what I mean about "willing to just get it done".

By willing to just get it done, I mean take the immediate pre-ship shortcuts and workarounds that you have to do often to ship on time. Rails abhors a shortcut or an abridgment. I think it has very large strengths for a lot of people. But for others, working in certain types of jobs, I find this insistance of "not going off the rails" infuriating.

Yes, I know if you're a ruby god whos' done rails for a very long time, and knows exactly how everything works, you CAN do this sort of thing. I've worked with some of you actually. I think you guys are cool. But the general ROR guy can't. The general Django guy can.

Django is a 18 wheeler truck and Rails a freight train. They do different things well. But damn, you crash if you take that train off the rails, but you can survive offroading in that truck for a bit to make that delivery at a weird stop.

Ruby on Rails folks hate when you say that though, cause it makes the language half of their equation look less good. It feels like a "Oh No You're going off topic no fair". They should just say "Yup, python is better for that other stuff" not "But we're talking about webdev!". To me, it agains feels like a community thing. Rails community does stuff like that, Django people seem to care less if you like what they do too.

The fact my rails apps can't as easily control hardware, do math, or call C++ or Objective C code with minimal glue actually is a problem for some solutions I do. So I like python (my actual preferred solution right now is GAE, not Django, but that's more economics/scaling based than technical. To be honest my latest rails dalliance is because of the characteristics of heroku, not rails itself

You try to state that opinion around here, even clearly stating the stuff Rails is better at, but you get railed on when you say the stuff it ain't better at is why you prefer the other. See what happens.