PHP vs. Ruby vs. Python (vs. Rails)

As I was falling asleep last night I was wondering about the differences in
terms of web development time and effort between PHP, Ruby, and Python. and
I found myself wondering how much effort the Rails framework saves me from.
Does anyone else out there have the experience to be able to compare these?
I'm partly curious because I've found it so difficult to get Rails going on
windows, while PHP was comparatively very easy. And Python I've just heard
is wonderful - i.e. "Google uses it". My curiousity with Rails is born out
of the fact that I've never used a scripting language for web development
and so have no clue how much any framework helps in terms of effort/time
saved.

I appreciate any light anyone can throw on this subject! :slight_smile:

Regards, Abe

For simple dynamic web content, PHP is trivially easy to use. However, it gets clumsier to deal with as the size of the project grows. Python is a very good language with probably a larger set of libraries available than Ruby. Personally, I think Ruby is better than Python and so Ruby has become my language of choice.

-- Matt
It's not what I know that counts, it's what I can remember in time to use.

···

On Wed, 1 Dec 2004, Abraham Vionas wrote:

As I was falling asleep last night I was wondering about the differences in
terms of web development time and effort between PHP, Ruby, and Python. and
I found myself wondering how much effort the Rails framework saves me from.
Does anyone else out there have the experience to be able to compare these?
I'm partly curious because I've found it so difficult to get Rails going on
windows, while PHP was comparatively very easy. And Python I've just heard
is wonderful - i.e. "Google uses it". My curiousity with Rails is born out
of the fact that I've never used a scripting language for web development
and so have no clue how much any framework helps in terms of effort/time
saved.

Abraham Vionas wrote:

As I was falling asleep last night I was wondering about the differences in
terms of web development time and effort between PHP, Ruby, and Python. and
I found myself wondering how much effort the Rails framework saves me from.
Does anyone else out there have the experience to be able to compare these?
I'm partly curious because I've found it so difficult to get Rails going on
windows, while PHP was comparatively very easy. And Python I've just heard
is wonderful - i.e. "Google uses it". My curiousity with Rails is born out
of the fact that I've never used a scripting language for web development
and so have no clue how much any framework helps in terms of effort/time
saved.

I appreciate any light anyone can throw on this subject! :slight_smile:

I haven't used Python for any web projects, but I've used PHP extensively in the past. PHP did well for small projects, but become more of a chore as it grew larger. I have never used Ruby on Rails for a web project, but I do use the Arrow framework for ruby.

http://www.rubycrafters.com/projects/Arrow/

to get a description on it see: http://www.rubycrafters.com/arrow-manual/whatis.html

I love Arrow, and it's framework really gives a nice and clean design element to web based projectsm, both small and large. (I said design element, i haven't had a enterprise app I've been able to benchmark for speed on)

I don't like PHP's syntax among other things, so I don't use it anymore.

When I learned Ruby, I attempted to learn Python to. And I decided that I liked Ruby way more then I liked Python.

So I use Ruby!

Zach

"Abraham Vionas" <abe_ml@bozemantechmedic.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:20041130152003.15A8733C20@beryllium.ruby-lang.org...

As I was falling asleep last night I was wondering about the differences

in

terms of web development time and effort between PHP, Ruby, and Python.

and

I found myself wondering how much effort the Rails framework saves me

from.

Does anyone else out there have the experience to be able to compare

these?

I'm partly curious because I've found it so difficult to get Rails going

on

windows, while PHP was comparatively very easy. And Python I've just

heard

is wonderful - i.e. "Google uses it". My curiousity with Rails is born

out

of the fact that I've never used a scripting language for web

development

and so have no clue how much any framework helps in terms of effort/time
saved.

I appreciate any light anyone can throw on this subject! :slight_smile:

This sounds promising for Ruby vs. PHP - development time wise as well as
runtime wise:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=de&lr=&selm=20031201213101.GC18957%40saber.xen.dk

Kind regards

    robert

Abraham Vionas ha scritto:

I'm partly curious because I've found it so difficult to get Rails going on
windows, while PHP was comparatively very easy.

I think this is a valuable note.
It would be really nice to have simple installer packages for windows with, say, ruby/fcgi+mod_fcgi+apache+sqlite+rails, or apache+IOWA+mysql, or Arrow+mod_ruby+GD. But probably with time this will happen.

There is no underliyng reason why installing mod_php+php+apache should be easier than using ruby frameworks, except that nobody applied on doing the same on our side yet :slight_smile:

I'm partly curious because I've found it so difficult to get Rails going on
windows, while PHP was comparatively very easy.

Its not that hard, promised :wink:

check out http://blog.leetsoft.com/rails/

···

--
Tobi
http://blog.leetsoft.com

The first bit of light is that Rails is not, in fact, difficult to get
working on Windows. There are videos linked from the Rails home page
[1] that go through the process, and they're easy to follow.

Cheers,
Gavin

[1] http://rubyonrails.org/RailsAcademy

···

On Wednesday, December 1, 2004, 2:20:04 AM, Abraham wrote:

As I was falling asleep last night I was wondering about the differences in
terms of web development time and effort between PHP, Ruby, and Python. and
I found myself wondering how much effort the Rails framework saves me from.
Does anyone else out there have the experience to be able to compare these?
I'm partly curious because I've found it so difficult to get Rails going on
windows, while PHP was comparatively very easy. And Python I've just heard
is wonderful - i.e. "Google uses it". My curiousity with Rails is born out
of the fact that I've never used a scripting language for web development
and so have no clue how much any framework helps in terms of effort/time
saved.

I appreciate any light anyone can throw on this subject! :slight_smile:

Abraham Vionas wrote:

As I was falling asleep last night I was wondering about the differences in
terms of web development time and effort between PHP, Ruby, and Python. and
I found myself wondering how much effort the Rails framework saves me from.
Does anyone else out there have the experience to be able to compare these?
I'm partly curious because I've found it so difficult to get Rails going on
windows, while PHP was comparatively very easy. And Python I've just heard
is wonderful - i.e. "Google uses it". My curiousity with Rails is born out
of the fact that I've never used a scripting language for web development
and so have no clue how much any framework helps in terms of effort/time
saved.

I have used PHP and I can tell you that before Ruby on Rails, the argument that Ruby web development required a little more setup to get working was valid, but Ruby on Rails makes things so much easier and is such a more elegant solution that there is no question in my mind which solution is better. But keep in mind this is coming from someone who has been writing scripted web apps for a while now. With zero exposure to web programming, I can see how Rails might take a little longer to grok.

Abraham Vionas wrote:

As I was falling asleep last night I was wondering about the differences in
terms of web development time and effort between PHP, Ruby, and Python. and
I found myself wondering how much effort the Rails framework saves me from.

Here's to Abraham Vionas, all tucked in at night, a month from now, massive smiling teeth glistening in the dark, out cold, another happy Rails customer. I cannot tell you how soundly I will sleep tonight, so pleased with my own little Rails app.

Rails is harder than PHP. But once you're in, Rails helps you move things along. Choo choo.

_why

Thank you!

              matz.

···

In message "Re: PHP vs. Ruby vs. Python (vs. Rails)" on Wed, 1 Dec 2004 00:37:50 +0900, Zach Dennis <zdennis@mktec.com> writes:

So I use Ruby!

Tobias Luetke wrote:

I'm partly curious because I've found it so difficult to get Rails going on
windows, while PHP was comparatively very easy.

Arrow was not hard either, after I read the installation guide without skipping over lines. :wink:

Its not that hard, promised :wink:

check out http://blog.leetsoft.com/rails/

Ok, I will blog my Arrow installation efforts as well....more to come this week.

Zach

Tobias Luetke ha scritto:

I'm partly curious because I've found it so difficult to get Rails going on
windows, while PHP was comparatively very easy.

Its not that hard, promised :wink:

check out http://blog.leetsoft.com/rails/

btw, maybe we could make pressure on the xampp folks to put togheter a rails (or arrow,iowa,whatever) addon ..

Carl Youngblood <carlwork@ycs.biz> wrote in message

With zero exposure to web programming, I can see how Rails might take a little
longer to grok.

Exactly my position. I have been using Ruby for about 5 years, but
never written a web app before.

I found it quite difficult to start with - I had to re-work my working
methods a bit as I got my head round the way to do things, but after
some initial pain I am finding Rails an extremely powerful framework.
And the rubyness (or should that be rubicity) of it all is quite
stunning. I like being able to write methods which take symbols as
arguments - it makes for a very powerful framework (e.g. having a
general plotting method that takes database column names
(=ActiveRecord class memebr names) as arguments. Very neat :slight_smile:

regards,

treefrog

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

···

In message "Re: PHP vs. Ruby vs. Python (vs. Rails)" > on Wed, 1 Dec 2004 00:37:50 +0900, Zach Dennis <zdennis@mktec.com> writes:
>So I use Ruby!

Thank you!

              matz.

This one email speaks volumes about matz, and the ruby community as a whole.

--
Walter Szewelanczyk
IS Director
M.W. Sewall & CO. email : walter@mwsewall.com
259 Front St. Phone : (207) 442-7994 x 128
Bath, ME 04530 Fax : (207) 443-6284

Hence the need for a "Programming Rails, The Pragmatic Programmers'
Guide". I'm pretty sure it would sell like hot cakes.

Dave, are you here ? :slight_smile:

···

Steve Hill <stephen.hill@motorola.com> wrote:

Exactly my position. I have been using Ruby for about 5 years, but
never written a web app before.

--
Luc Heinrich - lucsky@mac.com