Need a compelling argument to use Django instead of Rails

[Ray]

I just moved to another company that's mainly a Java/.NET shop. I was
happy to find out that there's a movement from the grassroot to try to
convince the boss to use a dynamic language for our development!

Two of the senior developers, however, are already rooting for Ruby on
Rails--although they haven't tried RoR themselves. When I suggested
Django, they went like, "what's that?".

I said, "It's like the Python counterpart of RoR".

"Nah, we're not interested in Python."

I think they are already predisposed to RoR simply because of RoR's
visibility (i.e.: at my workplace everybody knows RoR but nobody knows
about Django unless they've used Python as well). So far the arguments
I can think of:

1. The investment of learning Python will be a good investment because
it transfer to platforms that we've already supported, i.e.: JVM and
..NET CLR (using Jython and IronPython). Ruby's availability on this
platform is not as mature--JRuby is still at 0.9 and I don't think
IronRuby is coming out anytime soon :)

2. Python is a much more mature language than Ruby--it's been around
since ages ago and as such has a lot more tools, articles, and other
resources than Ruby. It is also the language being used by
high-visibility company like Google, with the creator of the language
himself working there.

3. Python emphasizes readability instead of cleverness/conciseness.

4. What else? I haven't tried RoR so I can't argue meaningfully on
whether using Django will put us at an advantage.

Can you help me with my argument? Meanwhile I think I'll give RoR a try
as well.

Thank you,
Ray

[Steve Holden]

Ray wrote:

I just moved to another company that's mainly a Java/.NET shop. I was
happy to find out that there's a movement from the grassroot to try to
convince the boss to use a dynamic language for our development!

Two of the senior developers, however, are already rooting for Ruby on
Rails--although they haven't tried RoR themselves. When I suggested
Django, they went like, "what's that?".

I said, "It's like the Python counterpart of RoR".

"Nah, we're not interested in Python."

I think they are already predisposed to RoR simply because of RoR's
visibility (i.e.: at my workplace everybody knows RoR but nobody knows
about Django unless they've used Python as well). So far the arguments
I can think of:

1. The investment of learning Python will be a good investment because
it transfer to platforms that we've already supported, i.e.: JVM and
..NET CLR (using Jython and IronPython). Ruby's availability on this
platform is not as mature--JRuby is still at 0.9 and I don't think
IronRuby is coming out anytime soon :)

2. Python is a much more mature language than Ruby--it's been around
since ages ago and as such has a lot more tools, articles, and other
resources than Ruby. It is also the language being used by
high-visibility company like Google, with the creator of the language
himself working there.

3. Python emphasizes readability instead of cleverness/conciseness.

4. What else? I haven't tried RoR so I can't argue meaningfully on
whether using Django will put us at an advantage.

Can you help me with my argument? Meanwhile I think I'll give RoR a try
as well.

I wouldn't waste your time. "A man convinced against his will is of the
same opinion still", and they already know they aren't interested in
Python. There are probably many other matters about which they are
uninformed and equally determined.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_b...ged_my_mi.html

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden [phone] [phone]
Holden Web LLC/Ltd http://www.holdenweb.com
Skype: holdenweb http://holdenweb.blogspot.com
Recent Ramblings http://del.icio.us/steve.holden

[Ray]

Steve Holden wrote:

I wouldn't waste your time. "A man convinced against his will is of the
same opinion still", and they already know they aren't interested in
Python. There are probably many other matters about which they are
uninformed and equally determined.

Well the thing is that I have to admit I have some stake in this. If
we're using Rails then everybody's starting from 0. Whereas if we're
using Python I already know it so I'll have an easier time :)

Also, those are just two developers. Convincing the big guy, the
decision maker, is a separate matter isn't it?

Do you know of any other arguments, or you do think that for somebody
who really, really doesn't care about which language, either RoR/Ruby
or Django/Python will do just fine?

Cheers
Ray

>
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_b...ged_my_mi.html

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden [phone] [phone]
Holden Web LLC/Ltd http://www.holdenweb.com
Skype: holdenweb http://holdenweb.blogspot.com
Recent Ramblings http://del.icio.us/steve.holden

[Ray]

BTW the link below is good reading! Thanks Steve!

Steve Holden wrote:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_b...ged_my_mi.html

[Tim Heaney]

"Ray" <ra********@yah oo.comwrites:

>
Can you help me with my argument?

Well, there is this study suggesting Django outperforms Ruby on Rails

http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pa...rk+Performance

Meanwhile I think I'll give RoR a try as well.

Good idea. I think Ruby on Rails is terrific. Perhaps you'll think so
too. If not, at least you'll have a better idea of why you don't.

Tim

[Ray]

Tim Heaney wrote:

"Ray" <ra********@yah oo.comwrites:

Can you help me with my argument?

Well, there is this study suggesting Django outperforms Ruby on Rails

http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pa...rk+Performance

Meanwhile I think I'll give RoR a try as well.

Good idea. I think Ruby on Rails is terrific. Perhaps you'll think so
too. If not, at least you'll have a better idea of why you don't.

Thanks Tim!!

Cheers
Ray

>
Tim

[Steve Holden]

Ray wrote:

Steve Holden wrote:

>>I wouldn't waste your time. "A man convinced against his will is of the
same opinion still", and they already know they aren't interested in
Python. There are probably many other matters about which they are
uninformed and equally determined.

Well the thing is that I have to admit I have some stake in this. If
we're using Rails then everybody's starting from 0. Whereas if we're
using Python I already know it so I'll have an easier time :)

Also, those are just two developers. Convincing the big guy, the
decision maker, is a separate matter isn't it?

Do you know of any other arguments, or you do think that for somebody
who really, really doesn't care about which language, either RoR/Ruby
or Django/Python will do just fine?

Well, my view is that both are frameworks, and so you will inevitably
"run out of steam" at some point if your implementation plans become too
ambitious. The impression I get is that Rails is relatively inflexible
on database schemas, and once you get "off the beaten track" it gets
difficult to cope with complex existing databases.

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden [phone] [phone]
Holden Web LLC/Ltd http://www.holdenweb.com
Skype: holdenweb http://holdenweb.blogspot.com
Recent Ramblings http://del.icio.us/steve.holden

[Ray]

Thanks Sybren for the reply! Regarding this point:

The form handling is also excellent.

Is it excellent in a way that's "better" than RoR in certain ways?

Regards,
Ray

Sybren Stuvel wrote:

Ray enlightened us with:

Two of the senior developers, however, are already rooting for Ruby on
Rails--although they haven't tried RoR themselves. When I suggested
Django, they went like, "what's that?".

I said, "It's like the Python counterpart of RoR".

Bad answer. Now they think they'll get the same thing they already
have with RoR, but that they'll have to put more effort into it.

"Nah, we're not interested in Python."

Ask them why.

I think they are already predisposed to RoR simply because of RoR's
visibility (i.e.: at my workplace everybody knows RoR but nobody
knows about Django unless they've used Python as well).

Which means most of the people saying "we're not interested in Python"
do so without proper reason, since they don't know the language.

1. The investment of learning Python will be a good investment
because it transfer to platforms that we've already supported, i.e.:
JVM and .NET CLR (using Jython and IronPython). Ruby's availability
on this platform is not as mature--JRuby is still at 0.9 and I don't
think IronRuby is coming out anytime soon :)

Jython isn't up to par with current Python versions either.

2. Python is a much more mature language than Ruby--it's been around
since ages ago and as such has a lot more tools, articles, and other
resources than Ruby. It is also the language being used by
high-visibility company like Google, with the creator of the
language himself working there.

That is _definitely_ true. The behaviour of Ruby hasn't even properly
been defined.

4. What else? I haven't tried RoR so I can't argue meaningfully on
whether using Django will put us at an advantage.

Check out the admin you get for free with Django. Add/edit/delete
controls are easily done with RoR, but Django comes with a mature,
easy to use, on-the-fly generated, customizable admin. The form
handling is also excellent.

Sybren
--
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a
capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the
safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?
Frank Zappa

[Ray]

Steve Holden wrote:

Well, my view is that both are frameworks, and so you will inevitably
"run out of steam" at some point if your implementation plans become too
ambitious. The impression I get is that Rails is relatively inflexible
on database schemas, and once you get "off the beaten track" it gets
difficult to cope with complex existing databases.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the reply! Regarding "running out of steam", well... we've
been using Struts + Spring + Hibernate on the Java side, so yeah, we're
quite used to molding our code to fit frameworks :)

Cheers
Ray

>
regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden [phone] [phone]
Holden Web LLC/Ltd http://www.holdenweb.com
Skype: holdenweb http://holdenweb.blogspot.com
Recent Ramblings http://del.icio.us/steve.holden

[David Cook]

On 2006-07-24, Sybren Stuvel <sy*******@YOUR thirdtower.com. imaginationwrot e:

Jython isn't up to par with current Python versions either.

But the last release is up to the level of C-Python 2.2 or so. I don't
really feel like I'm missing that much with it.

Dave Cook