Interesting article on Rails vs. PHP:
http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2007/09/7_reasons_i_switched_back_to_p_1.html
Clearly learning Rails was great for the author’s brain; hence, the great pedagogical value of learning Rails even if you end up not using it.
It sounds as though his MVC framework is home-grown. This strikes me as a real problem. While it may be the case that he was able to accomplish his re-write in two months, would a new developer be able to understand the frameworky aspects of the code? Would that developer be able to go to a book to learn how it all works — or transfer the framework knowledge to a new job? If you have a home-grown framework, you’re really doing your developers a disservice. I suppose it’s a strategy for employee lock-in.
One of his reasons for sticking with PHP was his difficulties getting multi-lingual to work in Rails: A definite issue; can’t wait until that objection is finally and completely removed in a standard way…
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I did get a chuckle out of this description in the comments:
Machine code:
surely it is better to abstract all this lever pulling
Assembler:
still at the coal face but at least I can write about it
Compiled:
phew out of manipulating the system directly
Interpreted:
ok got a nice environment going to suck in the overhead and most business applications can be done
Frameworks:
hold on I am in someone else’s house, wearing their clothes and trying to get to grips with their VCR
And there are those neat Rails vs. PHP movies…
And Python…