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Is it worth changing from java/spring/hibernate to rails for a program that is undergoing massive changes?

Asked 2011-04-25T09:18:50.417
11

I have a project whose core domain is dramatically changing. It's possible to use 50% of the core functionality from this site and just add the 50% new functionality, but I am starting to consider that maybe it might be faster to simply redo the product in Rails. Development speed is very important.

There are some things I really like about java - the performance and scalability are very good. I am not a crappy Java developer, so my apps tend to run very well - better than the Rails sites I've seen. I've always accepted the idea that people probably just throw a little more money at the problem when it comes to using Rails, which probably works itself out in the end because of the insane productivity benefits.

I am actually quite agile with Java. I know it will still take me longer to add a basic entity to the system, but I am quick at it and I don't mind it that much. At least it's easy and straight-forward to do.

What I do mind is:

  • having to start/stop the server just to fix a route, lazy load exception, controller is going to wrong view, etc.
  • putting up with the fact that unit/integration tests sometimes have different results than the production environment (because annotations on controllers can't be tested, or lazy-loading exceptions occur during asynchronous service calls, or things like that). Knowing if your Jackson is marshaling your data properly is another Tomcat-only thing because it's handled by Spring. There are lots of things that go wrong after you have tested all that you can, and this frankly annoys the crap out of me.
  • putting up with the occasional maven/classloader problem that doesn't rear its ugly head until you deploy into tomcat. It gives the false impression that everything is "a-okay" when you are in your IDE.
  • having to put more effort to do database migrations than the ruby people ever have to.
  • putting up with framework bugs in Spring that block (it's happened ab
java ruby-on-rails ruby spring
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1 Answer

10

It takes more time to get good at Ruby, and Rails. I worked as an independent contractor as Spring and Hibernate expert myself, but I felt strangled by java and it's web frameworks so I decided to learn Ruby on Rails.

I would advice you to learn Ruby, from what I read you would probably master it, although get pretty frustrated with the very different way the use the ORM. I had issues with it, used to working on aggregate roots in Hibernate to the ActiveRecord one class one table kind of pattern. But hey, you could easily try out MongoDB to have some real fun.

Ruby is

  • less code
  • it's fast and scalable (slower than java on the specific tasks, but you get rid of stacks of layers.)
  • the problems are more often; which gem should I use. Luxorious!
  • a unique, big, sharing and caring open source community
  • nice frameworks, as Rails and Sinatra
  • powerful.
  • fun!

Would I advice you to do the project you describe in Ruby.

NO.

Not if speed of development matters. You will be slower, trust me. There's a lot to learn, it's conventions are not familiar to a java programmer and when you get stuck, lots of hours fly by.

The best option would be to hire a senior ruby developer to pair up with you and teach you. Be a good apprentice and you'll learn fast. Faster than me, I had to learn most by myself, which is really inefficient.

Good luck!

answered 2011-04-25T09:50:30.410

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