Hey Dave,

Cheers for the input man, greatly appreciated!

My point about development time, depends on what the project is. If
it's a small, lightweight project then the quicker you can get it out,
more than likely the better. If you're going to be creating a project
that is going to attract millions of hits a day, it would be worth
factoring that into the technology and framework choice, rather than
simply going with whatever is most comfortable. I know I myself have
fallen into that trap, and it cost me a lot later down the track.

Software projects are very much a build first, optimize later - but if
it means redeveloping your project (read: twitter), then it would seem
that not enough planning and forethought was provided in order to
maximise on the platform of choice. (btw, I don't think twitter is
necessarily making the best decision =P)

That said, not all software projects are web projects and this is what
I was trying to stress (on multiple fronts - obviously I didn't
communicate it too well =( ). I mean, using rails to create a
reporting tool that outputs to console probably isn't the most sound
choice for the job, and on the other hand - embedding HTML within a
PHP script wouldn't be the best solution to an enterprise-scale
project, either. I've even seen on some forums people wanting to use
Rails just so that they have access to ActiveRecord, when there are
quite a few solutions out there for such a task, which isn't tied to a
full-stack framework.

"Seems like a bit of a dead issue to me anyway -- accepted practice is
to develop then optimise."

Very much like my DRY CSS post - it's more of a thought-provoking
exercise, and it helps me map my own current thoughts to paper, as
well as hope to do the same for others, as is done via this very
discussion =)


Cheers,

Kirk

On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 2:48 PM, Dave Bolton <[email protected]> wrote:
> I wasn't able to read your blog post before, but I understand more what you
> are getting at now that your server is back up.
>
> So, you're talking about heavyweight in terms of performance.  It's
> difficult to address your ideas without getting specific about frameworks --
> defensiveness be damned, if you're going to call out heavyweight frameworks
> you *need* to get specific so we can discuss.
>
> The example in your email of a Rails app for database reports seems at odds
> with the blog post.  Is a reporting app ever going to need to serve so many
> pages that the framework is the issue?  I think not.
>
>> [from blog post]: "Development time is generally much more expensive than
>> hardware (unless you're serving millions of page view per day), and so
>> therefore (depending on the project) a sound and educated decision should be
>> made, rather than simply jumping into your favourite development framework."
>
> Given that development time is more expensive than hardware, then that is
> EXACTLY the reason you should use your favourite framework first.  I take
> your point that when you have a hammer, every problem seems to be a nail,
> but also, if you're developing for the web, many problems *are* nails, and
> most frameworks *are* hammers.  Just use the one you are most comfortable
> with.
>
> Seems like a bit of a dead issue to me anyway -- accepted practice is to
> develop then optimise.  Are there any frameworks that are really that bad
> that performance is going to kill you before your site is massive anyway?
> (if caching is used)
>
> Cheers,
> Dave
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 12:05 PM, Torm3nt <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> Well there were a couple of frameworks, but I was trying to be
>> framework-agnostic for a reason - there are a few that are quite heavy
>> and load up a lot of files and libraries, even if they're not used -
>> so as to make the job easier for the developer. Plus I didn't want to
>> be labelled as a  "oh he doesn't like framework x so he mustn't be
>> good with it".etc. If I targeted any specific framework, people are
>> bound to get defensive of their framework of choice, which detracts
>> from what I wanted to convey.
>>
>>
>> Kirk
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 12:01 PM, Dave Bolton <[email protected]> wrote:
>> > - Which frameworks are you targeting?
>> > - Heavyweight in what sense? Resources? Concepts? Performance?
>> >
>> > With respect to Rails, I don't have a problem throwing it at small ideas
>> > --
>> > the concepts are easy and standard, and resource requirements are not so
>> > onerous to make it unfeasible (in all senses of resources).
>> >
>> > I guess you could mean heavyweight in the sense of all the things Rails
>> > lets
>> > you do out-of-the-box, but there's no compulsion to use them all, and
>> > I'd be
>> > suprised if they changed the resource and performance equations so much
>> > to
>> > make Rails no longer an option.
>> >
>> > So, put me in Dr Nic's "scales for the size of the project" bucket.
>> >
>> > Cheers,
>> > Dave
>> >
>> >
>> > On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Torm3nt <[email protected]> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Cheers for your input Dr Nic,
>> >>
>> >> I wasn't actually specifically targeting rails - rails 3.0 certainly
>> >> looks to be much more enticing as far as frameworks goes as you'll be
>> >> able to plug and play various libraries together, but not many
>> >> frameworks do this =P
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Kirk
>> >>
>> >> On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 11:24 AM, Dr Nic Williams <[email protected]>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> > People talk about "rails doesn't scale" and mean performance. What I
>> >> > love
>> >> > about Rails is that scales for the size of the project. You can start
>> >> > a
>> >> > micro project today, and it easily evolves into a bigger project.
>> >> > The single-file-contains-my-app frameworks aren't wrong or broken;
>> >> > rather
>> >> > they take away one of the oft-forgotten but awesome aspects of Rails:
>> >> > you
>> >> > and I both know where our next model or controller is going to go.
>> >> > The
>> >> > generators know it. The IDEs/editors know it.
>> >> > The heavy-weightedness of Rails will probably become optional as we
>> >> > move
>> >> > to
>> >> > 3.0 and beyond.
>> >> >
>> >> > On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 11:19 AM, Torm3nt <[email protected]> wrote:
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Hey all!
>> >> >>
>> >> >> I've recently been musing over the use of heavy frameworks (such as
>> >> >> RoR) and how I'm beginning to see (in some cases) them being
>> >> >> overused,
>> >> >> mostly for the wrong purposes. In one instance I witnessed a Rails
>> >> >> application for getting reports on a database.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> I've written my thoughts on this and would love to hear from some of
>> >> >> the more intelligent people in this community, either of their own
>> >> >> experiences or even a counter-argument =)
>> >> >>
>> >> >> http://www.kirkbushell.com/articles/using-the-right-tool-for-the-job
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Cheers,
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Kirk Bushell
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > --
>> >> > Dr Nic Williams
>> >> > Mocra - Premier iPhone and Ruby on Rails Consultants
>> >> > w - http://mocra.com
>> >> > twitter - @drnic
>> >> > skype - nicwilliams
>> >> > e - [email protected]
>> >> > p - +61 412 002 126 or +61 7 3102 3237
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > >
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > >
>> >
>>
>>
>
>
> >
>

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