Why Ruby on Rails

Last week I was fortunate enough to attend Microsoft Tech Ed 2008 New Zealand. There was a huge amount of varied content but I am focusing on two sessions I attended (expect another post on Dynamic Languages).

One of my most anticipated sessions was a panel discussion on Web futures – the next 18 months. I was expecting to hear contradictory views on where things were heading.  Maybe I should not have been surprised that there seemed to be rather a lot of consensus. It is a “give in” that there may have been a Microsoft focus but nevertheless I was expecting more sparks to fly.

Why I was so interested was to focus my learning around the technologies that are likely to become dominant.  May be more importantly to learn which new and existing businesses will thrive as the Web develops.

The more I thought about what I had heard I was reminded of a quote that goes something like

Those who know about the future are too busy creating it to talk about it

Even 18 months is a long time.  Looking at the history of YouTube it was only 18 months from launch to being purchased by Google.

As another aside Blake Ross , one of the main creators of Firefox is still only 23 years old.  So the view of any one over 30 on the future of the Web may not be that relevant (that includes me by the way).

So here is my view of what are some of the most significant technologies going forward :-

Ruby on Rails

Enough said, won’t labour it further here.  The addition of Internationalisation is another sign of it’s maturity and completeness.

Eliminating Multiple User-names

For the end user, me included this simply becomes too hard to manage.  Every retailer on the Web seems to have a different user-name and password they want you to remember.  Google Account, Microsoft Live ID were mentioned.  However let’s not forget OpenID and I am determined to learn more about how I can use it on any sites I develop.

Microsoft SilverLight

Whatever degree of success or adoption Silverlight achieves it will be significant in shaping the future of the Web.  Off course SilverLight is not a replacement for Flash however it is inevitable that comparisons will be drawn.  As Flash enters it’s 12th year and now has the strong back of Adobe it will be interesting to see what happens.

Elastic Computing Platforms (ECP)

I prefer the terms ECP to Cloud Computing as that sounds a bit fluffy.  It is very much a reality with Amazon EC2 Service . I began to appreciate the significance of Cloud Computing when I read on Akita on Rails Blog Post on the topic.  Google App Engine and off course Herkou for Rails use this technology.  I also expect given time there will be more database engines that solely exist for on-line storage similar to Google’s BigTable .

High Speed Internet

The keynote address at Tech Ed features leaders from both of New Zealand’s main political parties giving their visions for the future around providing Internet to homes and businesses.  This will and always has driven what applications are going to be used in practice.  Just one example, my monthly cap on Internet usage is 3Gb so why would I use a service such as Mozy for on-line backups.  Mozy itself may be free for up to 2Gbbut with such restrictive limits there are some countries like New Zealand where these sorts of service just are not going to be used (much).

After trying various other editors for Ruby on Rails I have settled with Ruby In Steel Text Edtion.  The reason that I have gone with the Text Edition is that priced at the more affortable US $49 but still has the features I need at this point.

When it comes down to it Ruby in Steel is a plugin for Visual Studio 2008.  So it seems a bit strange to back with Visual Studio 2008 which is the tool I use nearly every day for Visual Basic.NET development.  Of course that is somewhat of an advantage in knowing the keyboard shortcuts and other features.

One thing I really like about Ruby In Steel is that is very well documented so you feel as though you are getting something of substance for the cost of the licence.

The other handy consideration for me is that while you are in Visual Studio you can do all of your HTML editing with very good CSS support.  I must admit this is an area where Microsoft has made a big investment and provided many improvements.  The split view between source HTML and visual representation provides “the best of both worlds”.

I will keep watchin the progress on Intype and E Text Editor as they are both good products that have the potential to be great in my view.  Intype particularly is making very slow progress and I have a look every couple of months to see if anything has changed (much the same as my own progress with Ruby on Rails).

Recently I received the good news that I am going to be attending Tech Ed 2008 in New Zealand . I understand that Scott Hanselman will be on of the speakers.  One of the many things that Scott is well known for are his annual list of top tools for Windows.  This inspired me to look again at the list of tools.

Also this year I started using ClipX which I found out about on Jeff Atwood’s blog here.  Anyway ClipX has been hugely productive for me.  I had tried ClipMate but it was just too much whereas ClipX gets it just right in terms of usability and being light weight.

Anyway from Scott Hanselman long list it lead me to two great finds :-

1. SlickRun is just such a quick and simple way to open applications.  With some many things on my Start Menu it is a really time saver and well worth the time to set up.
2. Speedfiler is an add-in for Outlook that really quickly allows you to file your emails into Folders.  Despite it’s cost (starting at US $25) and limited scope it works so well I am seriously considering purchasing it

Obviously there is a lot more on the list however it is always a balance between what is useful or unnecessary.