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I have been looking at jobs. Most of the companies require RoR or Django experience. I don't know any of the languages. The number of organizations working with RoR is greater than Django. But I prefer django because of python.
What do you coders/recruiter suggest me to know?
My best answer is for you to learn both.
Consider this your end goal, and instead consider your question as, "Which one should I learn first?"
I recommend that you start with Django, especially if you have Python experience. Django's approach, like that of Python itself, is more condusive to learning. Once you've gotten your feet wet, learn Ruby on Rails, because that's the framework that will net you easier cash when you get out into the modern Web 2.0 workforce.
Once you're thoroughly familiar with Ruby on Rails and have been working for a bit, continue learning Django. Refamiliarize yourself with the basics, then start to learn some of the more advanced stuff. Django's inner guts are supposedly easier to dissect than that of Rails. If you ever find yourself faced with a job opening with a surprisingly novel and challenging web platform to implement, you'll find your Django knowledge quite handy.
Here's a bulletized rundown:
Django
Great documentation
Thorough tutorial to ease you in
Fewer files to understand at first (vs. scaffolding in Rails)
Built on Python, which you might as well know anyway
More similar to enterprise stuff like Java Servlets/JSP
Easier to dig into its innards
Ruby on Rails
It's what's hot
Hot means more jobs
You want money, don't you?
When you want to make a "traditional" web 2.0 site, its generated code lets you get done really fast
Integration with JavaScript libraries
Built on Ruby, which you might as well know anyway
Verdict: Django first (do the tutorial), then Rails, then Django again
I'd suggest you to do some research regarding technologies trends and professionals demand, you can do this by using Google tools, such as Google Trends
See more details about technology research here. Happy coding!
If you're more familiar with Python, then you should do Django. Google App Engine is a big user of Django, and you can use that to "sharpen your saw" in Django skills, for a cost-free investment.
Learn both.
Look for a company, where the people (without ties) have fun working there and speak compassionate about there work. This matters far more, than the technology they're working with.
If you are low on time, and have to choose one, just choose the one, for which you know how to program. If you know python, learn django, if you know ruby, learn rails. Both have excellent tutorials, and reference materials, RoR rules in screencasts, django rules documentation and tutorials.
If you have a lot of time on hand, say 3-4 months, then learn both. What's wrong with that?
try ruby...I love ruby over python then I prefer rails over django...but if you try ruby and don't like it your best option would be django...
I think it depends on how much convention you are used to. Coming from MVC4 to Django I like alot of things, but find I am writing more code where django calls for configuration vs convention. I have found that there are alot of generic methods that I am finding that reduce this, so it might be a learning curve issue for me.
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For the past few months i've had the feeling that i reached a boundry in my knowledge of Ruby on Rails (RoR) development. I've developed large and small applications for both big/small clients and friends / hobby projects. I know how to develop these applications and it's beginning to feel a little bit tedious. I want to take my programming skills to the next level, me having a little experience with Javascript i enduldged myself in some good Javascript books and learned alot! But now i'm back stuck at the same RoR level that i've been for the past few months. and i want to get that knowledge boost i got from the Javascript books.
I really want to contribute to alot of open source projects but when i look at the source code i get the feeling that i dont know enough of the code and that i will become a irritating burdon to the main developer(s) of the project(s). This is just some uncertainty of mine but i dont want to tire/irritate other developers...
I feel stuck and i dont know what to do to up my own level. I try to read the source codes but often i get stuck with mainly the question "why are you doing this, and what are the benefits of it? And how does it work?". I know i want to up my knowledge of both ruby and rails but i dont know how to do this. In my time programming RoR it's been very difficult for me to pinpoint my "skill level" knowing i can always up my skills. So knowing this i started with some basic Ruby books: The well grounded Rubyist and Beginning Ruby. These were great books i learned some nifty little tricks but that's about it.
Do you guys recommend any resources and or books. I don't have alot of experience with other languages than Ruby / Javascript. But i really want to learn, i don't have a solid programming background because it mainly evolved from hobby to work. I want to contribute to open source projects and work and mainly learn from other great developers. I'm stuck and i don't know where to start.
Thanks in advance.
A few books:
Eloquent Ruby
Rails Anti Patterns
Crafting Rails Applications
Then, armed with knowledge, you'll be able to read code (your first and good intuition): that's a great source of inspiration.
There's a lot of good material at Railscasts which is worth looking through. You can learn a lot about current practices, something doubly important when a lot of the Rails material out there is for 2.x or 3.0 and doesn't reflect the state of the art.
The best way to improve your skill is to find new challenges to exercise yourself. You'll need to work on general Ruby and general programming as well as improving your knowledge of the Rails framework.
Set aside time to read and understand the various APIs you're being exposed to. The more you know your toolbox, the less time you'll waste trying to do something that's already implemented. APIDock is one of the many documentation aggregators out there for Ruby and Rails. As Ruby is generally quite readable, it's even educational to browse through the source for the libraries you use and see what methods are offered as well as any insight you might gain from observing how they're implemented. Often there are interesting use cases that are never fully documented but will serve you well when you need them.
There's a lot more to say, but really, it's a long journey. That's why people write things like Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years as a counter-point to the "Teach Yourself X in 21 Days" books plague the industry.
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This is not a core programming problem as most posts on this website are, forgive me for that but I didn't know where else to ask this.
I am a beginner in web languages and want to build a small website for our family business, mostly a bunch of galleries that would display our different product lines with prices and some basic specs for customers to get an idea..currently I'm pursuing comp science at the undergrad level
So here is the problem, I can't decide between platforms
I started out with HTML and making a basic mock up but that didn't quite work out as i needed to have dynamic galleries that was quite hard to code by hand and since we need to update often it would be a pain even if I did manage to get it going
then I thought of Joomla as it would be easy to update but soon realized that its not that easy to customize templates
Then I started reading about Ruby on Rails and what it offers and it sounded really interesting might be useful in developing applications that we possibly would need in some time.
so I wanted to know from the community which course should one pursue: DHTML, Joomla, RoR
Please keep in mind that I want this to be a learning experience that will be useful possibly in the future in my professional career and at the same time get the job done.
I would also greatly appreciate any resources or suggestions that the community might have.
You are actually comparing apples to oranges here as DHTML, RoR, and Joomla are not the same thing. You are comparing a mark up language, to a programing framework, to a content management system. You could feasibly learn a CMS (Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, etc) and never learn to code a single line of HTML or PHP.
For the purpose of getting a site that you can manage and edit yourself, then what you are asking is which CMS should you use. There are dozens of CMSes and opinions on which one is the best. In general are the big 3 - Wordpress, Joomla, and Drupal. Wordpress is by far the easiest to learn. It has a very simple admin that shouldn't take more than a few minutes to figure out. There are tons of themes and extensions that go along with it. The downside is that it's coded to be a blogging platform, not an extensible CMS. That means that doing things other than blogging are harder to accomplish (relative to Joomla and Drupal). It can still be done, but the more complex the site, the harder it is to do in Wordpress.
Joomla is the next step in ease of use. The admin is significantly more complex than WordPress, but a tech savvy user will get the basics down in the first couple of hours or so. Extendding Joomla is much easier for both the developer since the framework is specifically designed to be extended, and the user since installing is very quick and easy for most extensions. It's a pretty good balance between ease of use for the admin and ease of extension for the developer.
Drupal is probably the most powerful of the 3, but the trade off is in the user admin. Most non-developers will struggle to understand how the admin works or what taxonomy is and how it works. Again, the trade off is that it allows developers much more power in extending Drupal. Drupal makes it easier for the developer to accomplish much more complex tasks than Joomla or Wordpress.
At the end of the day, all 3 can accomplish the exact same thing on a website. You need to determine which one will accomplish your particular needs the best.
That said, you should still learn HTML and a programming language. My recommendation would be to learn PHP and mySQL. That will give you a solid foundation on which to build on once you are well versed. Other languages and flavors of SQL will come easier, plus many of the large open source projects are done in PHP/mySQL.
Since what you are trying to do is a pure learning exercise, I suggest you look around into a lot of things(rails/css/javascript/php etc) until you finally find the one that you will have fun playing-with. You learn faster when you can tinker with it.
Ruby on Rails may 'seem' easy to an advanced web developer. Its an advanced framework and needs considerable amount of investment in terms of time and interest and most importantly you need to have an aptitude for it. If you REALLY want to do this, and you have a general aptitude for Web programming, I suggest you start with Wordpress. Its search-engine friendly and will get you running in no time.
Learning we development and design is not a small task. It'll take you years to get even moderately good, so if you need to get something up and running now, I'd not recommend you to build it yourself.
There are a lot of nice Joomla templates and plugins available if you are ready to pay a small price for it. Search around a bit more, and you might find something that works for you.
I would start with a CMS such as Joomla or perhaps even Wordpress. Grab a template and tweak it - this will be a good introduction to coding websites as the really hard parts are already taken care of.
Once you have finished the site that you are working on then you can think about moving on to a framework such as Rails or even a PHP based once like Code Igniter. The frameworks will take a lot longer to figure out but at the end of the day they will give you a better learning experience then just tweaking a CMS template.
I would say it depends on your goal. As mentioned they have different purposes. That said I would say Joomla or Rails.
If you are interested in CMS (or design), and don't want/care about getting down and dirty into coding then I would use Joomla and learn what you need to acccomplish your goal.
If your goal is to be able to develop custom web APPLICATIONS, I would probably learn Rails. There is much more of a learning curve but you will get experience with things like html5, javascript (or coffeescript), css3 (or sass), exposure to the MVC model (model view controller) and exposure to Ruby.
But with Rails there is a lot more to learn, but you will have a lot of knowledge.
If you want to go down the rails path, maybe start with a Rails CMS (like locomotive or refinery) b/c they are written in Rails, you could look at the code or have some insight into the CMS. Disclaimer I have not used a Rails CMS (just did some research)
I would choose Joomla. They have a vast array of components and modules that should meet your needs. As far as customization, if you are a beginner this will be difficult no matter the platform. DHTML is not a platform. DHTML is mainly javascript, css and php. I suggest you get some books on doing dynamic stuff with javascript and jquery, styling with css and creating MVC sites with PHP. When you learn all this first your job customizing an whatever platform will be much much easier.
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I am still new to web framework and I am thinking of choosing either Ruby on Rails or Django. Which one should I go for as a beginner?
If you don't know either, you're maybe a little better off with Ruby on Rails...
If you are experienced with programming at all, try this: I have found that almost all of my developer colleagues decide on RoR or Django based on the language. Both are a quick pick-up, and more often than not, one of the two languages will just "speak" to you.
I'm somewhat OCD with my code (and life) and for me, Python was a better fit. I felt calm while writing it, and more importantly, calm while reading it. However, the guy that sits next to me - and I have a mountain of respect for - found Ruby to be more appealing.
So my suggestion? If you already know how to write code and the meaning of Object Oriented, spend a day with each language. Almost invariably, you'll respect one, and fall in love with the other.
THEN pick a framework :)
I have no experience in using RoR but 3 years of knowledge about Django. A very huge advantage of Django is its very good Documentation.
Especially for a beginner this might be the most important fact. Even most of the third party apps (pluggable modules/plugins) for django are document very good and are easy to use.
On the other hand Django code is in IMO more readable since its Python code - Ruby code tends to get messed up a bit faster.
I'll assuming you don't know Ruby or Python already, since that would be the number one determinate of which way to go. Having developed both Rails and Django projects, my take is that you probably can't go wrong with either, but my feeling is that Django is better oriented towards building sites for publishing, whereas Ruby is more oriented towards webapps. This is not to say that you can't build a great web app in Django build an awesome CMS in Rails, of course. But take a look at most of the high profile users of Django: NYTimes, The Guardian, Washington Post, LA Times, The Onion, AV Club, Everyblock. Those folks are more oriented towards publishing. Meanwhile, things like GitHub, BaseCamp and Twitter (partially) run Rails. So ask yourself what type of sites you are likely to be building and go from there. But really, like other posters have recommended, there's no reason no to spend a few days playing around with both and seeing what feels like a better fit.
Both are good. From experience, though, you'll get better and more up-to-date documentation most of the time for both Python and Django.
Both are GREAT!! by I prefer Rails because of:
MVC! Model View Controller.
The wide community of Rails.
Many big projects like Twitter, 37signals products are built on Ruby on Rails.
The BIG and the HUGE libraries and gems for Rails/Ruby.
and many other reasons. Well, you have to see this: Rails Django-Comparison and rails-vs-django
Amr
This is a little subjective since it can depend in no small part on your general programming background. Do you know Python? Do you know Ruby? In general, you're best off choosing the framework for a language you already know since then you're only learning one new thing instead of two.
If you don't know either, you're maybe a little better off with Ruby on Rails due to its greater mind-share in the general development community currently. This will make it easier to find help and example code online.
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My company is looking to move their software to an open source framework. Their first thought was J2EE. I know that Django and Rails are popular for recreational development, but not sure about them in a corporate setting.
I was looking to compile a list of possible web frameworks to consider. Unfortunately I am not able to release our requirements to the public. Also I would like to know if you have seen/used different frameworks in a corporate environment.
Thanks
I believe the more important question is what talents you got. If you have a primarily Java team, and you want to completely move to Ruby or Python, it's gonna be hard, if not impossible.
When deciding if X language/framework is good for a business, you have to consider opinions from your internal technical staff first. That normally sets you in a place with limited choices. Unless you are with a very small but highly talented/motivated team or planning to build a team with new hires.
Not sure what you mean by a corporate use, but we're using Django at a large media company for the websites of nearly 40 radio stations.
Another vote for Django. I'm not sure if the Washington Post or LA Times count as "corporate" but they have a lot more demands (both daily hits and time-to-new-feature) than your average "corporate" environment.
Struts, Stripes, Wicket, Spring MVC. I use Grails and love it.
You can go to Rails too. We use Rails successfully in a number of serious applications.
If you are just looking to save money from software, you can go to any J2EE frameworks out there. If you looking for some fun and rapid development, try Rails.
It all depends on the type of the project and the talent you have.
I use django in a real-time professional environment.
it's solid, and blazing fast (django on nginx/fastcgi, and soon couchdb too!)
We're using sinatra (ruby) for frontend to our main internal application. Simple, stable and flexible.
Struts2, Spring MVC, Stripes, Wicket, Grails, JSF, Seam, GWT, Flex, etc (Stripes and Grails being my favorite).
Matt Raible did interesting comparisons of (most of) them in this presentation which is an updated version of this old one.
Another interesting reading might be the What is the most commonly used Java web framework? question here on SO.
IMO, whatever you choose doesn't matter that much, the presentation layer will still be throw away code.
Any framework that keeps you away from the imperative languages (e.g. Java, C#, JSP with Java etc.) is better. Declarative/Functional/Data Flow languages (e.g. Ruby, XSLT, Python, etc.) result in solid implementations that save you support/enhancement $$$.
It sounds like the powers that be are comfortable with Java, but do yourself a favor and avoid J2EE. Go grab Restlet and Groovy, write a nice Rest back-end that not only serves as a programmatic API for your project, but will work nicely with any Ajax/Javascript library you choose to implement a UI in.
We are currently using Django and the web site is driving a lot of business to the company as well as growing by double digits since last year. It doesn't matter what kind of technology the corporation is using but what their business model is. What are you currently using in-house? It will make more sense to use a web framework related to your in-house code, knowledge and man power.
If nobody knows Rails or Django, you have to factor in the learning curve during the migration. It should only be a couple of weeks depending on the savviness of your developers. Then again if everyone hates or do not enjoy working with the in-house technology, trying a new one might be worth it.
"I know that Django and Rails are popular for recreational development (...)"
Rails:
http://basecamphq.com
http://highrisehq.com
Django:
http://www.lawrence.com/
http://www.everyblock.com/
They have high traffic and content-heavy services. I wouldn't call those guys business as "recreational development".
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I have been interested in learning Rails for some time now and feel now is as good as time as ever to dip in and actually get my hands dirty. I've spent the past week reading every free ebook on Ruby and Ruby on Rails I can find. I just finished reading Ruby Essentials. I have also been playing with http://tryruby.hobix.com/
I have installed Ruby, Rails, MySQL, PHP, phpMyAdmin on a Windows XP machine, I also have access to a Ubuntu machine.
I come from several years of PHP experience and around a year using CodeIgniter.
What I would really like now is a fairly basic Rails app that is a little more in depth than Hello World but not quite up to par with say a forum or blog.
I find its much easier to learn how something works when I can play with already made code and do some trial and error changes.
What I am really looking for is that 'Ohhh, I totally understand now!' moment I had when I first started learning PHP.
Does anyone have an app or know of one that could possibly provide that moment?
Check out the screen casts on Rails at BuildingWebApps . I've watched several and they have been exactly what I was looking for when learning rails. They start simple and keep adding more and more functionality. The commentators move at a good pace and subscribing to the lessons is free.
If you want something that is built already build the sample application that comes with Agile Web Development on Rails, buy the pdf from pragprog.com, the latest version is set to work with Rails 2.2, so will work with 2.3 as all the basic features of the framework will be the same.
When you are ready to move on from that, the Rails Guides website is all new and is a great resource for all developers new and old.
dwc is right though, a blog is a good thing to start on your own, so when you are confident give it a go, even if you don't put it in production it will help you along.
I would recommend railsforphp.com. They have a PHP to Ruby reference which could be quite helpful.
You can also buy the 'Rails for PHP Developers' book as either a paper or digital copy (or both if you really want to). The book is full of examples that show the PHP way and how it compares to the Ruby/Rails way.
As for ready made code, I suggest having a play with Enki. It is a somewhat bare-bones blogging system that should give you a good testing ground.
You should rethink your idea that a blog is too complex. At it's simplest a blog is a textarea and a submit button, and then storing and regurgitating the results. Start with that to get your hands dirty, then add features as you go. In fact, why not practice some Agile and do your own iterations?
The Rails Guides are nice http://guides.rubyonrails.org/
If you don't like the blog idea, you could make a wiki, this isn't very complex either. you simply need a edit button on every page with the text from the linked to it. This will teach you how to handle rails and play with ruby for things like regular expressions and such.
Take your time, break down these problems and and they should be easy for you to solve with rails.
And go on IRC (server freenode channel #rubyonrails) you can use MIRC for that. Ask questions there, I usually am there, (look for nims).
My suggestion would be to start with a simple CMS. This is something you can continue to use and expand as your skills progress and you start other more complicated projects. In the most basic form, this consists of a Page model, and a Topic model. You could then add a User model, some login capabilities and a simple admin interface. After all, Rails was originally envisioned to make it easy to CMS type sites.
As you get this up and running, you can add some plugins to extend the functionality to include tagging, comments, and more. Or you can roll these capabilities yourself.
Set up an account on Github and learn how to use Git. Its great, and better than what you used before (if anything.) You should also learn rake, and capistrano, as these are huge timesavers and work hand in hand with Rails and Github.
http://blog.caboo.se/articles/2007/4/11/sample-rails-application
http://www.railsinside.com/elsewhere/100-7-barebones-rails-apps-to-kick-start-your-development-process.html