As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 10 years ago.
I am wondering what's the next logical step after developing applications with java play framework?
I really love to develop with play 1.2 but I am inconfident about its future, the main developers stopped their support on it (yet it is still opensource) and play 2.0 is a completely different product.
I tried to study play 2.0, but I just couldn't like the scala language (although it sounds like a great language to code)
So I decided to focus my web application projects to another framework. It shouldn't have to be java, but I prefer it to be a platform independent framework like ruby, or else. (I am also a .net developer with mcp certificate but i usually use osx enviroment for coding and I'm not a big fan of windows).
My Current problems with the play framework:
It works quite well but i dont see a future with it i am afraid the opensource community will stop developing 1.2.x after some time
Play 2.0 threads java as a second class citizen, and i am starting to losing my faith to its developers.
There are not much people looking for play framework jobs
The framework should be:
Platform independent
Database independent (can use hibernate
or else..)
Has a large user community
Has to be a proven framework with large enterprise applications
I've searched a little bit and I found grails, spring and RoR frameworks.
Ok then to make things clearer, heres a summary about my question:
Should i continiue from the "java" path?, i have concerns about time is changing and in few years, there will be more "scala" like functional languages used in web frameworks and they will be more useful in future frameworks
I am also wondering about Ruby langugage? Any insights about where will they be in the next 5 years?
Where do you see "Play framework with scala/java" in the next 5 years? Will they be worth the time invested on them?
Thanks for helping!
Spring.
If you know Java then a reasonable thing is to know Spring also.
People crap on Spring because they think:
Its not new and shiny
You need gallons of XML to do anything.
Its humongous monolithic beast.
Besides being mature none of the above is true. And unlike Play! Spring is in it for the long haul.
Spring also doesn't go off and build its "own" of everything but instead relies on best of breed libraries that you plug in. Thus with Spring you can play with what ever templating language, what ever build system, persistence, etc...
Now the only PITA with Spring is finding a good starting point. I recommend either Spring Roo or MWA
UPDATE:
I don't know why I got the -1 when the question was bad anyway (put a comment or something).
He asked for:
Platform independent
Database independent (can use hibernate or else..)
Has a large user community
Has to be a proven framework with large enterprise applications
IMHO There is not a framework that fits the above points better (particularly enterprise).
HE asked an opinionated question I gave him one.
Related
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 10 years ago.
I like to experiment with different languages to keep my interest alive when working on small side projects away from my day job.
I'm finding it increasingly difficult to steer away from Django and Ruby on Rails because of a couple of features they come packed with (or that are mostly default and easily integrated): authentication and automatic admin interface. Django comes with both, with Rails you just have to add ActiveAdmin as a gem and you're ready to go.
When I try to experiment with different frameworks and languages (Noir for Clojure, Express for Node), most of the times I find interesting languages I'd love to work with but whose "web framework" idea is just some convenience method for routing and parsing URLs and requests, leaving you alone with all the common and annoying parts of web development, like form validation, user authentication and profiling, having a working admin interface and so on, all things that Django and RoR provide to you for free.
What other languages and frameworks have such commodities? I'm aware of some PHP frameworks like Symfony, but I really have used PHP for too long in pas years and I'm pretty fed of it. Thanks.
Stick with RoR in my opinion. It's still a young yet powerful framework. It's well maintained and quickly plugged whenever a security risk becomes known.
It doesn't really matter what kind of MVC framework you use since it all comes down to the programmer. Ruby on Rails cuts out the painful part of programming (IMO) and allows you to do the enjoyable parts. Requiring knowledge of SQL is very minimal within Rails unless you're doing complicated scoping.
If I kept searching around for different languages to explore after I found one that suited all of my needs and then some, I would never get anything done. Moving from PHP/CakePHP to Rails is definitely an upgrade in my opinion, but at this point, you're better off committing to one language (Python/Django or Ruby/Rails).
I would stick with Django. Having worked in everything from classic ASP, ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, Java, PHP and Rails, I can state, unequivocally that Django is hands-down the easiest to work with, most profitable framework I've ever used.
Rails does have some pretty controllers, but it pales in comparison when you get down to functionality. Sure, Rails has lots of plugins, but Django has nearly everything you need under one roof. Django-admin alone is a friggin' gold mine. I work full-time as a Technical Architect, but also own my own business. Switching from Rails to Django in 2008 was the single best thing I ever did for my business.
If you want something flexible, modular, easy-to-extend and incredibly well documented - Django is your ticket. You also see far, far fewer of these lovely posts with Django.
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 12 years ago.
I've to start my master thesis project and I've to choose a technology to work with. I've used Rails and ASP MVC, in two projects, but never used Django, only some play with it. But I've some experience with python and really like the admin interface.
The objective of my master thesis is a creation of portal to a public hospital.
I have several years of experience with .NET and C#, but the other alternatives are appealing too.
In terms of philosophy, all three are open-source, and ASP MVC works in Mono.
What are your opinion?
UPDATE 1: By your opinion, I mean share your experiences(good and bad), advantages, disadvantages with this frameworks.
UPDATE 2: Btw the portal will be used by the patients or potential patients...
Thanks
IMO the only reason to consider .net is if the hospital deploys on windows. Deploying anything else on windows is a pain, and deploying .net on any other platform is a pain. (IMO)
Beyond that, I think the best thing to do was get a rough idea of what you want the portal to do, then look at library support.
After that, its just really what language do you prefer.
UPDATE:
As for my experiences on each: I have 4 years of webforms experience, and played around with MVC. Pluses are that it is mind rendingly fast, and the deploy experience is pretty damn simple. Tooling is decent too, especially the SQL Server frontend, never seen another db tool as good. Down side is that it just doesn't do as much for you as django or rails, in fact, it doesn't really come close. Also, you are going to have to type 3-4x as much due to the language, although some people think the tools make up for the verbosity.
For rails, I have about 8 months professional experience with it. Plus side is there is a plugin for almost everything, and the framework is pretty packed with things that make your life easier. Personally, ruby is also my favorite imperative language, its the kind of thing where you achieve multiple levels of enlightenment as your knowledge of the platform deepens. Down side is that we are in the middle of a transitional period right now in both rails and ruby, so documentation, recommendations, and library support is probably going to be up in the air for the next 8 months or so.
Finally, I am really not an expert on python or django, but I have played around with both. The language is very similar to ruby (meant for productivity over perf, dynamic, very elegant design), but differs quite strongly in philosophy. Pythonistas believe there should be one (and only one) clear and concise way to do things. Rubyists (like perl monks) believe that there should be many nuanced ways of doing something, and that elegant code is like elegant language; expressiveness is paramount.
I would say rails has an edge over django at the moment, due to more eyeballs over a greater period of time. That wont last forever though, django is wildly popular and in a few years I am sure support for both frameworks will be roughly equal. It really comes down to a philosophy thing with these two platforms. If you look at a library that pushes the language in some strange directions that take awhile to grok, but once you do you realize is quite an elegant way to do things, chances are you are a ruby guy. If you look at something like that and say "Ok, so thats clever, but they really should have done it the way that everyone else does it, cause non standard use of syntax really sticks in my craw", chances are you are a python guy.
I think that is totally up to you. In this case, everyone else opinion seems useless.
According what you say, there is no technology limitation and you are totally free to chose anything you want. It's impossible to find an objective criteria.
It would depend if you're more interested on improving your ASP NET / C# skills and giving MVC a try or if you want to learn something totally new.
Any of those options is correct, it depends on your taste which one to pick.
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 10 years ago.
I'm building a new game and I need to build a web app to help manage content generation. The app would consist of a couple simple forms that would tie into a MySQL db.
I've been really interested in learning Lua for a long time due to it's large popularity in the video game industry and was wondering how well it works as a server side language. I could easily write the web app in PHP but I'd rather use this opportunity to learn Lua if it makes sense.
What do you all think?
Cheers,
Sure it can be done. Good idea if you just want to learn Lua. You should start here: http://www.keplerproject.org/
Of course, if your app would consist of a couple simple forms, you can use all what you want. But if it is more complex (will become more complex in future) it will be better to use some industry standard languages like Python or Ruby (or, at least PHP), there are a lot of good frameworks writen in them that very simplify your work (I don't know about any complete lua web frameworks) .
You should remember, that in future other people will have to maintain your code and there are very few web-developers who know Lua.
Probably, there will be problems with documentation and basic libraries too.
While LUA is a nice language for embedded development but i would extremely vote against LUA for web development.
The reason is that in Games you simply don't have an external API. All is done with your own objects only some calls into your game engine.
But the web world is so full of stuff you need, like SMTP, POP3, IMAP, SSL, Amazon APIs, Google APIs, RSS Apis, Imaging etc. and while the checklist for LUA may have a check mark behind all this words - it doesn't mean anything. Most of the stuff i have seen is just a "me too| implementation but not industrial strength. They are projects by hobbyists and are published on a "Its good enough for me" basis which is total unacceptable if you ever go mission critical.
There is a reason why it takes years and a huge community to get this up. Lua has an extremely small community of web developers.
So if this is a professional project where you put your money i can only say hands off. On the other side if you have enough money i still have some snake oil here for sale, please contact me.
I have been using lua for years as a web language. Initially using the Xavante project and more recently apache2.
Dont listen to any neigh sayers, its a great language for web developement and we use it to write business software, and not just for form processing, for graphical applications too.
Also it offers us seamless integration to any other lua or system functions we might need to call.
Good Luck!
Have a look at Nanoki which is built on a pretty minimal set of libraries (lfs, luasocket, lzlib, slncrypto)
and Sputnik which is built on Xavante or CGI
Lua is a good language but it is best suited to embedding within an existing project in order to quickly extend the capabilities of that project. In particular, the interesting aspect comes with how you bind it to the host application. This is definitely the case when programming for games where it is an embedded language rather than the language the whole app tends to be written in. So using a web app to learn about Lua with a view to making games is probably not a very good approach, especially since the syntax is very simple and would be picked up quite quickly anyway.
I think that specific variants of lua can be used successfully for web applications and I have done that in the past using the maintained weblibrary. It can depend on if the lower level software on the computer is itself written in lua because of its high speed and this may cause a clash of lua versions. Regarding a serverside possibility the server would need a compatible version of the script developing facility for the hardware and a suitable bytecode or VM instructions and custom VM runtime implementation for running the application.
I've been developing a pure Lua Web Server, you could always check it out and see if it suits your needs
Lua4Web https://github.com/schme16/Lua4Web
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 11 years ago.
I have been using Grails for the past few months and I really like it, specially GORM. However, I am getting interested into Scala's Lift. Therefore, I would like to know your opinion about which kind of web apps are better suited for which of those two frameworks or it is just a matter of taste, which framework to use?
Finally, which of those frameworks do you think will be more used in the future?
I have the feeling that Grails is far from reaching a critical mass and it still remains very obscure (in the past few months I had the opportunity to work with middle size companies and IT startups working mostly with the JVM stack and only one person knew and used Grails) and I am not even sure if it can become the "RoR" of the Java world (Indeed reports a drop of growth in the last few months even if other frameworks have a positive growing rate). And I love Groovy, it is really easy to learn but I have noticed how slow it can be for some tasks.
On the other hand, Scala seems to be more popular (Tiobe Index) and the fact that Twitter is using it now gave it even more presence in the blogosphere with lots of lovers and haters making buzz. It is famous for being fast and scalable. However, the language seems somewhat hard to understand and learn for lots of developers (so maybe it will never gain mainstream status). Lift is little known and I have read some reports that it is better suited for small apps (less than 20 domain classes).
By seeing the number of books published Groovy-Grails dominate right now, but many publishers have Scala books on the works, so I think this advantage will not last long.
Finally, we have the problem that both languages and frameworks still have poor IDE support (it is getting better by the day but far away from what Java shops expect to be productive).
I do not want to start a flame wars, but I would be very interested to hear other users' opinions.
The accepted answer here takes a really ignorant view on Groovy - it is a modern, dynamic language (dynamic vs. static is a huge debate in and of itself, and not particularly relevant here). This is by design, and therefore not a disadvantage, just a difference. It has a lot of modern language features that Java does not have such as closures, native regexp, polymorphic iteration, some optional static typing (matter of debate, but also look at groovy++), native syntax for lists and maps, etc.- you can see a comparison here http://groovy.codehaus.org/Differences+from+Java
To address the actual question of Grails vs. Lift, I'd say Grails hands-down. It has the SpringSource behind it, and just look at the plugins page http://www.grails.org/plugin/category/all - I can't even find what plugins or equivalent are available for Lift. Grails is also on top of the latest cloud-friendly technologies, with features like native RabbitMQ messaging support, and turnkey GORM support for MongoDB and Redis.
Grails is a nice idea(but only "stolen" from rails) but the fact that the groovy guys are not interested in getting proper Eclipse support is hindering it's success a lot. I've even seen Eclipse questions not being answered at all on the grails lists.
I agree with Tim that Netbeans 6.7 finally delivers the first half way usable Open Source IDE support for groovy/grails - and eventually, SpringIDE will also feature better groovy/grails support.
The reason many Java folks love Java is the static typing, which enables tools to help you a lot with many things. This is lost with a language as groovy.
Yes, I could write every really important piece of Code in Java and still use Grails - but then, why should I, just to save a bunch of lines of glue code, do that instead of learning to use a Java framework highly effectively?
To come to an end: I did not yet look at scala, but built some simple apps with grails - and I tend to go back to java, even reimplementing every app that needs further development in a plain Java framework - I think wicket and Seam.
I'll also look at Scala/Lift, I heard many good things about it!
BTW: I'd compare communities and look at mailing lists - how many peope are there, do they get good answers on their important questions?
Grails seems to have a non-answered rate from nearly 50%, which I feel is bad.
Grails support in netbeans 6.7 is really good, as well as the idea intellij support in Maia.
Eclipse is still pretty sucky.
I looked at lift, but was concerned about the resources available now; this will change in the future, but my projects can't wait.
I would like to specifically answer the question "for which kind of applications". The main difference between the philosophies of Grails and Lift seems to be that Grails enforces MVC whereas Lift seems to be more liberal i.e. it doesn't enforce MVC but provides enough avenues to use MVC if you want to.
Also Lift seems to be excellent for 'Single-Page Applications', especially if you need to implement a server-push functionality using technology like Comet (which obviously doesn't imply it's not good for other types of applications). On the other hand, Grails seems to be better for the 'Enterprisy' applications, especially if you are already familiar with Spring and Hibernate but want your app to be much more concise (using Convention over Configuration) than what a non-Grails app would be using these technologies.
References:
Simply Lift, chapter 13
Single-Page Application
Disclaimer:
I have just started exploring Lift and built some simple apps using Grails.
With all the performance improvements and advancements of Grails2.0, with great support provided by IntelliJ 11 for the framework, an ability to plugin pretty much any advanced web technology into your grails app., and yes - VMware weight behind it - I really don't see how Lift could be an advantage or a good choice. Just think of using two different languages in the same application, need for double expertise in the team, etc.
The original question has been posted like 2+ years ago and I think time showed on which side is the choice of the dev community ;)
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 10 years ago.
I'm planning on creating a social networking + MP3 lecture downloading / browsing / commenting / discovery website using Ruby on Rails. Partially for fun and also as a means to learn some Ruby on Rails. I'm looking for a social networking framework that I can use as a basis for my site. I don't want to re-invent the wheel.
Searching the web I found three such frameworks. Which of these three would you recommend using and why?
http://portal.insoshi.com/
http://www.communityengine.org/
http://lovdbyless.com/
It depends what your priorities are.
If you really want to learn RoR, do it all from scratch. Seriously. Roll your own. It's the best way to learn, far better than hacking through someone else's code. If you do that, sometimes you'll be learning Rails, but sometimes you'll just be learning that specific social network framework. And you won't know which is which...
The type of site you're suggesting sounds perfect for a Rails project. If you get stuck, then go browse the repositories of these frameworks. Who cares if you're reinventing the wheel? It's your site, your vision, your rules.
If you just want a site up and running, then I would pick Insoshi or LovdbyLess simply because they're out of the box apps so you'll have to do less to do get running. I suggest trying to install them both, and introducing yourself in the Google Groups. That'll give you a good indication of wether you're going to get along.
Update: Insoshi's license has changed to the MIT license, which means you're basically free to do with it as you please. But still, review the license for any code you are considering before you get too invested in it.
Something to keep in mind when deciding is the license for the code. Insoshi is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, http://insoshi.com/license. This means that you have to distribute the source code to your Insoshi-based web application to anyone who uses that web application. You might not want to do that, in which case you'll need to pay Insoshi a license fee (they dual license, like MySQL).
LovdByLess is distributed under an MIT license, http://github.com/stevenbristol/lovd-by-less/tree/master/LICENSE. This means you can use the source code however you want to.
I've not worked with these but am aware of this comparison:
"Unlike Insoshi and Lovd By Less, which
are full social networking Rails
applications, Community Engine is a
plugin that can add social networking
features to existing Rails
applications"
from
http://www.rubyinside.com/community-engine-rails-plugin-that-adds-social-networking-to-your-app-901.html
Regarding RailsSpace, that's a very nicely built Rails 1.2 application, and I think it was updated for compatibility with Rails 2.x. There's even a terrific book that was written about the RailsSpace application (or rather, RailsSpace and the book were written together).
But, RailsSpace became Insoshi, when the authors were so inspired by the amount of interest in a social networking site built in Rails. So while RailsSpace might be an interesting learning exercise, it's dead in terms of development. All of the authors' efforts (for more than a year now, I think) have been going into Insoshi instead, so that's where you should be looking.
Another option for anyone who wants to create a social site without having to build it from scratch is the EngineY framework. EngineY is a social networking framework written in Ruby and Rails. It provides alot of popular social networking features such as activity streams, groups, photos, message boards, status updates, events, blogs, wall posts, integrated twitter feeds, and more. EngineY is also under active development with new features being added all the time. You can read more about EngineY and download it from: http://www.enginey.com
Use Rails 3 and roll your own. Don't copy and paste code though, look through the source and try to understand the reasoning or motive behind certain design decisions, only then will you learn.
Just a quick update, EngineY now supports Rails 2.3.5 and just released this weekend is support for themes. This goes along with existing features including groups, blogs, photos, REST API, status updates, Facebook Connect, forums, private messages, user profiles, activity feeds, wall posts, and more... Check it out at http://www.enginey.com or on GitHub at http://github.com/timothyf/enginey
One other positive to Community Engine is that it is using Engines which is an advanced type of plugin that is becoming a part of rails in 2.3. So what you learn from using Community Engine (and therefore Engines) will be useful going forward.
i'm currently testing both lovdbyless and insoshi. i was able to install and get insoshi up and running fairly quickly whereas lovdbyless is giving me a harder time.
if you're in novice mode, i suggest getting the book from Head First.
http://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfrails/
it is probably one of the better books out there for beginners. atleast in my opinion because i went through a few that was just way too confusing.