Re: RubyOnRails and Intraweb

Sandeep Chandra wrote:
Is there any advantage in using RubyOnRails over Intraweb?

I'm a user of both technologies. To me this is like asking if it's
better to use a stationary bike or a treadmill to work out. They both
are web frameworks, but their approaches are different.

I don't have
much knowledge about RubyOnRails but from what I can see it is easy to
use with database and handles quite a lot on its own.

Rails is a set of technologies (ActionPack, ActiveRecord, erb, etc.)
that make up a full web stack. ActiveRecord is the part that interacts
with the DB and if you follow their conventions, it makes it very easy
to use.

I am not sure how productive it is when compared to Intraweb used with
InstantObjects. Using InstantObjects I can design my model and use it to
build/evolve my database.

I'm not a fan of InstantObjects, but yes in principle InstantObjects or
something like it corresponds to ActiveRecord in Rails.

Intraweb uses Delphi designer to design
Html/WebPage and there is no such tool for RubyOnRails.

Intraweb is primarily a web UI framework. It relies on Delphi itself to
do the rest. Intraweb provides WYSIWYG designers and a component model
in the traditional Delphi way.

Rails is a very different framework with a different philosophy. It's
more minimal in it's approach to building the actual UI, but quite
structured around MVC for the internal code. From the UI perspective,
you have to deal with HTML and Javascript, etc. IMO, this isn't "good"
or "bad" per se, but accentuates different strengths/weaknesses.

For example, integrating in a third party javascript library like dojo
is really easy and natural with Rails. With Intraweb it's more
difficult, although I believe they have made this easier with newer
releases, but the nature of IntraWeb requires more stuff to get it
working.

Also, evolving web techniques like utilizing JSON simply plugs into
Rails quickly, whereas Intraweb is just now adding AJAX support. To use
AJAX in Rails is very easy, just plug in your favorite AJAX library and
use it. Rails does have some enhancements for script.aculo.us, but you
don't have to use that AJAX stuff if you don't want to.

In this regard, there is less machinery in Rails to help you and less
machinery to get in your way. It all depends on your goals,
perspective, etc.

There are bound to be a lot more things, but from what I can see, right
now I am finding it really hard to understand how RubyOnRails can be
more productive.

Rails is extremely productive, and so is Intraweb. IMO, they are best
suited towards different kinds of web projects. Rails is very good at
building websites and some web applications.

Intraweb is best suited for building web applications that replace
traditional IT/Client-Server type applications. It particularly excels
at building applications with complex session state.

Rails is more difficult to deploy. There are many different options and
it's not as easy/trivial to get a Rails app into production. Although
there are a lot more Rails hosting companies than Intraweb ones and
Rails runs on almost all platforms. I deploy my Intraweb servers as
standalone ones, not ISAPIs cause it's so easy to do and it handles the
load we require.

For Rails, I have found Mongrel combined with a reverse proxy/load
balancer like Pound to be a good combination for deployment. I think
some are moving towards using NGinx instead of Pound, but I digress and
those are non-Windows solutions.

The general rule of thumb for me is to use Intraweb for Intranet type
applications or Extranet applications if there is complex user/session
state. For websites that are public or have less complex session state,
Rails, ASP.NET or php are my choices.

--
Brian Moelk
Brain Endeavor LLC
bmoelk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Delphi as a Web development Tool?
    ... IntraWeb is an extremely advanced architecture, perhaps a generation ahead of ASP.Net and Ruby on Rails -- in terms of abstracting you away from manipulating HTML/JS elements directly. ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: Some interesting criticisms of rails [NOT dining philosophers]
    ... trivial to handle all of that in Rails. ... I think that they're talking about a class of applications that do things that are more complex than manipulating data in a database. ... I think getting hung up on the term 'enterprise' is not a good idea -- everyone can name plenty of enterprise applications that primarily manipulate localised data in a database. ...
    (comp.lang.ruby)
  • Re: Joel Spolsky on languages for web programming
    ... Actually, despite the fact that I love Ruby a lot, I'm inclined to ... applications geared for use by only a few people (internal client use ... application based on Rails. ... that I simply wouldn't be able to do in PHP ...
    (comp.lang.ruby)
  • Re: How do we get there from here?
    ... and ruby on rails as well as ... Java with struts and Java Server Faces and plenty of others. ... eliminated Ruby and Python for now), but on the front end, I'm jumping ... into AJAX and not looking back. ...
    (comp.databases.pick)
  • Re: AJAX without Rails
    ... friend told me Rails was a bit to much for what I need, ... How do Ajax work for ruby? ... of it and use HTML or JSON to deal with it. ... If you want to include JSON data and do DOM manipulation directly, ...
    (comp.lang.ruby)