«

I'm currently in the process of learning Ruby on Rails. I'm going through the Rails for Zombies tutorial, and I'm seeing the power of Rails.

I still need to get a Ruby on Rails site up and running for the world to see. (My first serious RoR site will profile mutual funds from a value investor's point of view.)

I have an existing web site and project called Doppler Value Investing (dopplervalueinvesting.com) that uses Drupal to display the web pages and Python web-scraping scripts to create *.csv and *.html files showing informationon individual stocks. My site has a tacked-on feel to it, and I definitely want to change the setup.

At a future time, I will rebuild my Doppler Value Investing web site in either Ruby on Rails or Django. The Ruby on Rails route will require rewriting my Python script in Ruby. The Django route will require learning Django.(I'm not sure which one will be easier.)

My questions:
1. Why is Ruby on Rails much more popular than Django?
2. Why is there a much stronger demand for Ruby on Rails developers than Django/Python developers?
3. If Doppler Value Investing were your project instead of mine, would yourecommend the Ruby on Rails route or the Django route?

> My questions:
> 1. Why is Ruby on Rails much more popular than Django?

AFAIK Rails got a slightly longer head start than Django. And it has
been said that RoR's first killer app was a screencast. A little
marketing can go a long way. Since then Django has caught up a bit with
RoR in terms of maturity and adoption (I think this is in part because
of RoR's adoption slowing due to it not being the NKOTB anymore (not to
mention a few security embarrassments))
..
> 2. Why is there a much stronger demand for Ruby on Rails developers than
> Django/Python developers?

I'm not sure how big the difference is, but it's probably related to its
early(er) adoption. Same reason that there is a stronger demand for PHP
coders. PHP hit it big first, so there is a lot more PHP code to
maintain.

> 3. If Doppler Value Investing were your project instead of mine, would
> you recommend the Ruby on Rails route or the Django route?

If you already know/work with Python than I would go the Django route.
RoR and Django are not that much different nowadays as far as
methodologies. The main differences I think between RoR and Django are
that one is Ruby-based and one is Python-based. Other than that, if you
can get used to one you can get used to the other.

* <> [130306 09:31]:
>
>
>
> > My questions:
> > 1. Why is Ruby on Rails much more popular than Django?
> If you already know/work with Python than I would go the Django route.
> RoR and Django are not that much different nowadays as far as
> methodologies. The main differences I think between RoR and Django are
> that one is Ruby-based and one is Python-based. Other than that, if you
> can get used to one you can get used to the other.
I had problems getting django to work on my hostmonster account
which is shared hosting and supports fast_cgi but not wsgi. I put
that effort on hold for now, as it was just R&D for me, but
I would welcome you to take a look at this link where I opened a
ticket.
https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/19970
From what I inferred there and from the django ML, the django
"community" is indifferent to fastcgi and the shared hosting
environment. As someone is new to shared hosting environments (I
would mostly on dedicated servers) I get the impression that
django is cutting itself out of some (if not a lot) of the market.
I don't know about RoR tho....

--
Tim
tim at tee jay forty nine dot com or akwebsoft dot com
http://www.akwebsoft.com

On Wed, 06 Mar 2013 10:03:14 -0800, Jason Hsu wrote:

> My questions:
> 1. Why is Ruby on Rails much more popular than Django? 2. Why is there
> a much stronger demand for Ruby on Rails developers than Django/Python
> developers?

Fashion.

Demand for technology is usually driven more by copying what everyone
else does than by merit.

Consider: Fred is a busy manager who has to start a new website and is
dissatisfied with the technology he's previously been using. Does he have
time to learn Ruby on Rails, Django, CherryPy, Drupal, and thirty other
web technologies, to systematically and objectively decide on the best
language for the website? Of course not. Even evaluating *two*
technologies is probably beyond his time or budget constraints. So he
does a search on the Internet, or reads trade magazines, or asks his
peers, to find out what everyone else is doing, then copies them.

"Oh, they're using Ruby on Rails, it must be good." So now he decides to
use Ruby on Rails, advertises for RoR developers, and the cycle continues.

But is RoR actually better for his specific situation? Doubtful.
Presumably RoR is better for *some* specific jobs. At some point, early
in RoR's history, it must have been a *good* solution. But unlikely to be
the *best* solution, just better than whatever people were using before.

And so RoR will be the easy choice, not the best choice, until such time
as RoR is no longer satisfying developers. And then there will be a
sudden, and random, phase-change to some other tool, which will become
the next easy choice.


> 3. If Doppler Value Investing were your project instead of
> mine, would you recommend the Ruby on Rails route or the Django route?

Neither. I'd be rather tempted to try doing it in CherryPy. But then,
what do I know, I'm just as much a follow of fashion as the next guy.



--
Steven

On Mar 7, 9:58*am, Steven D'Aprano <steve
+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote:
> Neither. I'd be rather tempted to try doing it in CherryPy. But then,
> what do I know, I'm just as much a follow of fashion as the next guy.

All of the cool kids are using Pyramid these days.

On Wed, Mar 6, 2013, at 02:16 PM, Tim Johnson wrote:

> I had problems getting django to work on my hostmonster account
> which is shared hosting and supports fast_cgi but not wsgi. I put
> that effort on hold for now, as it was just R&D for me, but
> I would welcome you to take a look at this link where I opened a
> ticket.
> https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/19970
> From what I inferred there and from the django ML, the django
> "community" is indifferent to fastcgi and the shared hosting
> environment. As someone is new to shared hosting environments (I
> would mostly on dedicated servers) I get the impression that
> django is cutting itself out of some (if not a lot) of the market.
> I don't know about RoR tho....

I haven't any experience with shared hosting, so can't help you there.
I did do some work with lighttpd and fast_cgi and the Django docs worked
fine for that. But you're right. wsgi is pretty much the standard for
web services in Python, like DB API is to relational database access.
Ruby has Rack. Python has WSGI.

* Albert Hopkins <> [130306 17:14]:
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2013, at 02:16 PM, Tim Johnson wrote:
>
> > I had problems getting django to work on my hostmonster account
> > which is shared hosting and supports fast_cgi but not wsgi. I put
> > that effort on hold for now, as it was just R&D for me, but
> > I would welcome you to take a look at this link where I opened a
> > ticket.
> > https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/19970
> > From what I inferred there and from the django ML, the django
> > "community" is indifferent to fastcgi and the shared hosting
> > environment. As someone is new to shared hosting environments (I
> > would mostly on dedicated servers) I get the impression that
> > django is cutting itself out of some (if not a lot) of the market.
> > I don't know about RoR tho....
>
> I haven't any experience with shared hosting, so can't help you there.
> I did do some work with lighttpd and fast_cgi and the Django docs worked
> fine for that. But you're right. wsgi is pretty much the standard for
> web services in Python, like DB API is to relational database access.
> Ruby has Rack. Python has WSGI.

I believe that indifference on the part of Python to fastcgi is a
self-inflicted wound. I don't believe that there is any good
excuse for such indifference, except for a sort of bureaucratic
inertia. It's sad, when you consider how well python is designed
and how crappily PHP is designed and how easy it is to set up and
deploy drupal in the same environment. I speak from my own
experience.

respectfully :
--
Tim
tim at tee jay forty nine dot com or akwebsoft dot com
http://www.akwebsoft.com

On Mar 6, 11:03*pm, Jason Hsu <jhsu802...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm currently in the process of learning Ruby on Rails. *I'm going through the Rails for Zombies tutorial, and I'm seeing the power of Rails.
>
> I still need to get a Ruby on Rails site up and running for the world to see. *(My first serious RoR site will profile mutual funds from a value investor's point of view.)
>
> I have an existing web site and project called Doppler Value Investing (dopplervalueinvesting.com) that uses Drupal to display the web pages and Python web-scraping scripts to create *.csv and *.html files showing information on individual stocks. *My site has a tacked-on feel to it, and I definitely want to change the setup.
>
> At a future time, I will rebuild my Doppler Value Investing web site in either Ruby on Rails or Django. *The Ruby on Rails route will require rewriting my Python script in Ruby. *The Django route will require learning Django. *(I'm not sure which one will be easier.)
>
> My questions:
> 1. *Why is Ruby on Rails much more popular than Django?

"Where there is choice there is no freedom"
http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en...th-public-talk

Python-for-web offered so much choice -- zope, django, turbogears,
cherrypy, web.py etc etc -- that the newbie was completely drowned.
With Ruby there is only one choice to make -- choose Ruby and rails
follows.

Anyone who's used emacs will know this as the bane of FLOSS software
-- 100 ways of doing something and none perfect -- IOW too much
spurious choice.

GvR understood and rigorously implemented a dictum that Nicklaus Wirth
formulated decades ago -- "The most important thing about language
design is what to leave out." Therefore Python is a beautiful
language. Unfortunately the same leadership did not carry over to web
frameworks and so we have a mess.

I guess the situation is being corrected with google putting its
artillery behind django.

On Mar 6, 11:03*pm, Jason Hsu <jhsu802...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm currently in the process of learning Ruby on Rails. *I'm going through the Rails for Zombies tutorial, and I'm seeing the power of Rails.
>
> I still need to get a Ruby on Rails site up and running for the world to see. *(My first serious RoR site will profile mutual funds from a value investor's point of view.)
>
> I have an existing web site and project called Doppler Value Investing (dopplervalueinvesting.com) that uses Drupal to display the web pages and Python web-scraping scripts to create *.csv and *.html files showing information on individual stocks. *My site has a tacked-on feel to it, and I definitely want to change the setup.
>
> At a future time, I will rebuild my Doppler Value Investing web site in either Ruby on Rails or Django. *The Ruby on Rails route will require rewriting my Python script in Ruby. *The Django route will require learning Django. *(I'm not sure which one will be easier.)

It is a natural programmer instinct that a uni-language solution is
felt cleaner than a multi-language one. This feeling is valid under
the following assumptions:
- You are starting from ground up
- The investment in learning something new is not considered
significant

In your case, with a site already up (maybe with a tacked on feel) and
learning django a significant effort compared to directly coding in
RoR, you should look at polyglot solutions more carefully (eg not
directly relevant ... something like
http://www.igvita.com/2009/03/20/rub...g-with-erlang/ )

IOW code your site in RoR and call out to your python scraper-scripts
may be an option to consider.

On Wednesday, March 6, 2013 8:58:12 PM UTC-6, rusi wrote:
> "Where there is choice there is no freedom"
> [snip link]
>
> Python-for-web offered so much choice -- zope, django, turbogears,
> cherrypy, web.py etc etc -- that the newbie was completely drowned.
> With Ruby there is only one choice to make -- choose Ruby and rails
> follows.

Indeed!

"Costco", a wholesale grocery chain, realized the same issue of consumers being drowned by multiplicity, and have been very successful by intelligently narrowing those choices for it's customer base.