Rails isn't the only one...

**JCdev** · Nov 16, 2005, 13:08

There is more to Ruby than Rails!

Personally I prefer Nitro architecture over Rails; check it out here: http://www.nitrohq.com/view

**bonefry** · Nov 16, 2005, 14:17

Why do you prefer Nitro over Rails ?

**MiiJaySung** · Nov 25, 2005, 07:48

I wonder how many people have had a stab at Nitro. I've been keen to look at it one day... and I've heard some people speak highly of it. However it hasn't have the media attention and doesn't have the documentation / community supporting it.

If I remember rightly, it sort of is like the Apache Cocoon architecture of "modal" programming.

Are there any good examples you could highlight, and any good sites that use it?

**samsm** · Nov 26, 2005, 11:35

I'd be interested in specifics too. Is there a Nitro equivalent to the "install Rails and build a cookbook in an hour" tutorial?

I read a little and found Why might I use Nitro instead of Rails. Filled with a lot of jargon, but a few interesting points managed to seep through. The "Programmatic xhtml rendering" on that page looked particularly interesting to me.

**ChrisCarter** · Nov 26, 2005, 12:33

Sounds like they're trying to recreate J2EE with Ruby...no thanks.

**Brak** · Nov 26, 2005, 15:40

Originally Posted by samsm

The "Programmatic xhtml rendering" on that page looked particularly interesting to me.

Just curious, have you had a stab at Ruby's XML builder (that's available in rails). It's pretty much the same thing they're talking about.

IMO, I would rather die now than convert all of my <p> into <p> Pieces of example code like this scare the hell out of me:

Code:

  &lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;

  &lt;!-- example page --&gt;
  &lt;html&gt;

  &lt;?r  
    title = 'Example'
    version = params['version']
  ?&gt;

  &lt;h1&gt;#{title}&lt;/h1&gt;

  &lt;?r if version &gt; 1 ?&gt;
    &lt;b&gt;Version:&lt;/b&gt; #{version}
  &lt;?r  end ?&gt;

  &lt;/html&gt;

It sounds a lot like Nitro is aimed at revamping legacy systems with horrid database schemas and obtuse requirements, rather than starting with new applications.

**bonefry** · Nov 26, 2005, 20:00

I think the encoding you mention (<> and stuff) is an error in their HTML.
Nobody in their right mind would edit html or xml like that

And I don't think it tries to mimic Cocoon from what I see here.
But rather it is a framework that supports multiple paradigms, as their own page states:
"Multiparadigm web applications"

Anything that comes out of Ruby is great, and I also heard good things about Nitro.
Maybe I will take a closer look when I have the time.

Maybe JCdev can share with us the advantages of Nitro.

**samsm** · Nov 26, 2005, 20:02

Originally Posted by Brak

Just curious, have you had a stab at Ruby's XML builder (that's available in rails). It's pretty much the same thing they're talking about.

No, but I'm interested by that too. All on my list.

**vgarcia** · Nov 26, 2005, 20:32

Originally Posted by samsm

No, but I'm interested by that too. All on my list.

Here's a sample code to output mapping:

Code:

 xm.instruct!                   # <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  xm.html {                      # <html>
    xm.head {                    #   <head>
      xm.title("History")        #     <title>History</title>
    }                            #   </head>
    xm.body {                    #   <body>
      xm.comment! "HI"           #     <!-- HI -->
      xm.h1("Header")            #     <h1>Header</h1>
      xm.p("paragraph")          #     <p>paragraph</p>
    }                            #   </body>
  }                              # </html>

**ChrisCarter** · Nov 26, 2005, 21:32

Code snippets like that make me want to weep with delight!

**samsm** · Nov 27, 2005, 09:26

I understand the mechanics of it, I just haven't tried it and have no sense of whether it pragmatically works better than a template-based approach.

Any opinions on that point?

**Fenrir2** · Nov 27, 2005, 10:43

I think normal .rhtml is better for html, but builder is better for xml. This is especially true if there is one designer and one programmer.

**vgarcia** · Nov 27, 2005, 10:52

Originally Posted by samsm

I understand the mechanics of it, I just haven't tried it and have no sense of whether it pragmatically works better than a template-based approach.

I think it's just a matter of preference and need. For example, if you were building a Ruby class to output XML that wasn't tied to the web for anything in particular (just a general-use class that could go anywhere), then the XML Builder is probably the way to go. Otherwise it's what you're more comfortable with.

**ezmobius1** · Nov 30, 2005, 14:53

Nitro is a very nice web framework. The documentation is lacking but it lets you start simpler than rails and get as complex as you want. The main difference is in the OR Mapper. Rails has ActiveRecord which creates ruby accessors in your model classes based on the structure of the database table. While Og( the nitro ORM) goes the other way. In Nitro you define the columns in your ruby classes and they are automatically persisted to the db. You don't ever touch SQL unless you want to optimize a query. Kind of like ActiveRecord's migrations, og classes look similar. Og makes it easy to write plain ruby objects and then add persistence later with a few lines of code. Its a fundementaly different way of doing ORM than the way rails does it but each has their advantages. Og is well worth looking into but in the end I prefer rails to nitro. The lack of documentation is my main peeve with nitro. Nitro is a very capable framework though and the ruby programming that makes up the framework is very nice and has a lot to be learned from.

Cheers-
-Ezra