This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by David Heinemeier Hansson. Original Post: Patterns and practices, not language Feed Title: Loud Thinking Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LoudThinking Feed Description: All about the full-stack, web-framework Rails for Ruby and on putting it to good effect with Basecamp Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by David Heinemeier Hansson Latest Posts From Loud Thinking

In trying explain the intense pushback that some "enterprise" programmers have been giving Ruby on Rails, I'm entertaining one potential answer: There's confusion of where language ends and patterns and practices begin.

As Java gained traction and became the focus of business, it naturally attracted many of the best brains. While working in Java, they developed and profiliated an impressive array of patterns of practices.

We got the rise of MVC for the server side, an explosion in frameworks, test- and domain-driven development styles, and so much more. And while general ideas, most where explained from within the language that they had been practiced. So you have Java-first examples and implementations all over the place.

Who's to blame someone from thinking that it's all the same? That it's because of, and only in, Java that you would get access to these patterns and practices. And it's certainly havn't been hard to reinforce this belief by picking up one of the popular PHP applications, take it apart, and scoff at how little resemblance it beared to your modern living.

Who's to blame you for thinking that its intrinsic to the languages? Or even worse, that it's intrinsic to the division between dynamic and static languages. That Java equals good patterns and practices and that PHP (and by association, Python, Ruby, etc) equals bad. I think that's the crux of the matter. A misunderstanding well demonstrated in deployment debacle.

So if there's a misunderstanding, let's resolve it now. Ruby on Rails (and many other dynamic languages, frameworks, and applications) are largely built with a relevant subset of the same patterns and used following the same practices as Java!

Sure, there's reinterpretation. And the simplicity afforded in the new context can camouflage the resemblance, but the core ideas (and ideals) are the same.

Hence, I think the attachment many Java programmers have with the language and JVM could very likely be an attachment to the patterns and practices that these technologies are used with instead. And if that's so, it means that we're not so different after all.

If we can get that idea to take hold — that it's not about Java but about MVC, ORM, frameworks, test- and domain-driven development — I think the view on dynamic languages and frameworks in general, and Ruby on Rails in particular, would change dramatically.