This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by Dave Hoover. Original Post: Rails moves my Bottleneck in Web Development Feed Title: Red Squirrel Reflections Feed URL: http://redsquirrel.com/cgi-bin/dave/index.rss Feed Description: Dave Hoover explores the psychology of software development Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by Dave Hoover Latest Posts From Red Squirrel Reflections

Geoffrey Grosenbach's latest post reminded me of something I've grown to appreciate over the last couple years: web development with Rails pushes me out of the confines of my codebase and into the other aspects of web development much more quickly than any other web development environment I've used before. Rather than slogging through the painful verbosity of a J2EE codebase, on a Rails project I am (like Geoffrey) hopping around on various servers' command lines, configuring Apache, defining CSS, and crafting Prototype-inspired JavaScript features. For whatever reason, these are all aspects of web development that I had grown to belittle in a previous life when I was more interested in intellectual pursuits.

What I'm realizing lately is that while I cherish what I've learned about objects, agile, and patterns, I'm feeling a bit lop-sided (which isn't surprising if you look at my reading lists over the years). Rails has internalized some the ideals that came out of some of the most important software development revolutions of the last few decades. Martin notes:

...the [R]uby community has formed around the best ideas of the OO and Extreme Programming communities. Listening to the keynote of Jamis Buck and Michael Koziarski I was delighted to reflect on the thought that they were right there in the values of Ward, Kent, and all the other people who've been advocating clean code, well-factored object-oriented design, and testability. These ideas have made a great impact on many other technological communities, but in Ruby-land they are the orthodoxy.