Rails vs Django: New Project
I’m in the early stages of starting a new web application project for public use. I’m currently trying to determine what language I want to use for the application. Initially I considered Java, since I am a Java developer by profession. But for the same reason I may choose not to use it. 
Then I considered Ruby since I’ve heard and read a lot about it and know some people who are using it on paid projects currently. Ruby on Rails provides some benefits for web applications. While looking into Ruby I came across Django (which is written in Python).
Now I’m considering using either Ruby (and Rails) or Python (and Django). But the jury is out still. Here are some links of interest.
- A Rails/Django Comparison
- Performance Comparison Between Rails and Django (and Symfony)
- Django, Or Why I Chose It Over Turbogears and Ruby on Rails
- One Step Back (Ruby programmer Jim Weirich’s blog)
- MysterCoder (Ruby programmer Chris Nelson’s blog)
- Ruby Quickstart
- Django
I wish I’d decided already so I could start coding.
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javamate
Said this at 8:39pm:In the end I decided to use Ruby on Rails. The main reasons for this include a larger and more active Ruby/Rails community (at present, though it’s certainly possible this could change) and a certain appeal of Ruby itself. I want to see if it’s all it’s cracked up to be and the best way to do that is to get my hands dirty with it.
I purchased Agile Web Development with Rails, 2nd Edition (from the Pragmatic Programmers) and I’m going through that currently. It’s pretty amazing how easy it is to do common tasks that are required in nearly every web application, like validation. It’s also amazing how intuitive the code is. For example, to validate that a form has a value for the “title” field, you have a line like this in your model.
I’m a professional Java developer by day and I can tell you, even with Spring MVC (which I think is the best MVC framework for Java), it’s just not that easy to validate that a form field has a value. It requires multiple lines of configuration, plus a new class specifically for validation. The Rails notion of convention over configuration sure is nice in this regard.
I’m just getting started, so I’m sure there’s more excitement to come.