This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by David Heinemeier Hansson. Original Post: Seaside vs Rails: The battle that never was 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

Alexis Midon has a new article up at InfoQ, which contrasts an interview with me to one done with Avi Bryant. That in itself is not an event. Seaside and Rails are both high-visibility web frameworks that take very different paths in their execution. Contrasting the two to learn more is a great way to higher insight.

But discussing pros and cons of individual approaches is a lot of work. It requires that you cast more than a fleething glance at both frameworks. Preferably, that you try to develop something real in both. Or at least in one of them. Credentials rarely held by people writing these contrast stories.

So instead of reasoned contrast, the metaphor of war becomes a lazy fallback. This article is unfortunately no exception. We get a vocabulary of "row" and "controversy". Notions of people "questioning the real technical innovation of Ruby on Rails" and thoughts about "...is it not too late for Seaside and Smalltalk?".

But it's a war of no opponents. The Smalltalk and Ruby communities are two of the most cordial I know. Rarely is an ill word spoken between the two, often are words of mutual respect and affection. And in particular, I have nothing but the outmost respect for the work that Avi Bryant is doing with Seaside.

I'm much more interested in what I can learn from Seaside than just about any other framework out there. Exactly because it is so different. Exactly because Avi and I differ on a fair number of approaches to web development. At the same time, Avi used to do Ruby. And he's long been interested in making Ruby run faster by ways of a Smalltalk VM. I even had a chance to meet him at FooCamp and he's a very nice guy.

So please. There are so many current rifts where the battle metaphor is actually applicable &mbash; I rarely hold back on blasting WS-* in preference of REST &mbash; but Smalltalk vs Ruby and Rails vs Seaside are just not among them.