There’s been quite a lot of criticism of Rails recently:
- Going off the rails, wherein Jeremy Keith points out that Rails’ JavaScript helpers produce less than ideal output.
- Rails’ Ridiculous Restrictions, a Rant, which like the title says is a rant, but there are some genuine concerns mixed in there.
- My own experience in the previous post of a bug in Rails revealing a bit of bad design.
But the fact of the matter is that Rails gets so much right, that it’s still worth using. And I intend to.
Not only that, but I have every confidence that these issues will be addressed. In my case, I can see from the tickets that the whole area of database defaults is being revamped for Rails 1.1, so I’ll probably end up upgrading shortly after it comes out.
I’m reminded of the furore about the Google Web Accelerator last year. In that case, Rails was clearly in the wrong, and I said as much back then (although not fingering rails, apparently). In the end, a moderately sensible comprimise was reached: You can supply a :post parameter to the link_to command, in order to try and ensure that something gets submitted via post. It’s not perfect, as it relies on JavaScript to work, but it goes a good way to making it easier for people who don’t care to do the right thing.
In summary, Rails ain’t perfect, but it’s getting better all the time. And the way to speed it up? Patches Welcome.
Jabbering Giraffe 