Ruby on Rails is cool, but can it Scale?
I've been following the development of Ruby on Rails ever since the earlier versions. Like many others, I was very impressed with the videos, but was a little skeptical about the syntax, the popularity (or lack of) the Ruby language and basically how simple it was to create a CRUD application. If creating a web application is as easy as Rails makes it seem, then it CAN'T be used for large scale sites or enterprise applications; or can it?
Well, Rails just released version 0.13 (and 0.13.1 a couple of days later - yeah, the developers are very good at fixing bugs, listening to the community and releasing new versions.) They are fast approaching the final release of 1.0, which the current book is based on, and the ease of use and number of features that are packed into this framework are simply amazing.
So with all these amazing features, can Rails scale and be used for large sites and enterprise applications? David Heinemeier Hansson (the creator of Rails) and many others seem to think so, and I tend to agree with them. And for you Java fanatics who think that Ruby on Rails is just a fad and not worth the time and effort, try asking Matt Raible about his thoughts on the matter. And if that doesn't convince you, try reading this and this.
