Looking at my blog, I haven’t written here for over 2 weeks. Has it really been that long? It sure doesn’t feel like it.
Part of the reason I haven’t been blogging may be because I’ve had my head buried in a new language lately, Ruby. For those in the know, I’ve succumb to the buzzwords and taken the plunge into Ruby on Rails.
I guess I should be thanking (blaming?) Jeff, TheHoneymoon’s lead developer for pushing me over the edge. I’d opened the door to Ruby on Rails and poked my head around, but that was as far as I’d taken things. Recently, Jeff (and the other dev types at TheHoneymoon) have been mulling over leaving Java for Ruby on Rails and the last two weeks saw us jump ship entirely.
Two weeks ago, I was given Agile Web Development with Rails and so I set off working my way through building the book’s sample application. When I had finished, I didn’t feel like a Rubyist yet, but I had gained enough knowledge to do some damage.
If anything, I learned that I don’t care if I ever see another line of Java again. I’d even say it takes my preference over PHP. I figured out the reason I really liked PHP was because it reinforced my bad programming habits. I was never all that good at Java which at least enforced object-oriented principles on me. PHP, on the other hand, let me be lazy and code things I pretty much already knew how to do. Sure, you can do OO-PHP, but for me that would require a lot of relearning. Not efficient in the least.
While I was reading, I even tried to take a stab at developing Decoymusic in Rails. I’ve stopped, scraped what I had, and restarted a couple times already (because I keep learning better ways to do things), but I think my decision will still be to rewrite the entire thing in Rails when I get the chance. The current site is pretty hacked together. It works, but it’s got many shortcomings. I think if I can present a core set of features to a few people, it won’t be too hard to convince them this is where we need to go. The hardest thing I’ll probably have to do is convince our web hosting guys to install Rails on our server. Frankly, if I used OO-PHP it would probably be just as good, but this gives me an excuse to further learn Ruby on Rails.
To go with the new programming language, I should be receiving a Macbook Pro in the mail tomorrow. It’s a first generation (Core Duo, not Core 2 Duo) model, but I can’t complain because work bought it for me. We also ordered 2GB of memory from another vendor to max the thing out, but that probably won’t get here for a few more days. I can’t wait. Tomorrow will be like Christmas morning when I was eight years old. It’s funny how the only thing that’s really changed is the pricetag of my toys. Once a gadget-nut, always a gadget-nut.
