Is the development-friendly environment of Rails such that someone would be using it for WordPress? I thought it is was mainly for application dev?
I saw a website today for a self-taught freelancer listing his html/css skills, and affinity for Rails/Git. Nothing about Ruby or application development. But based on links to client websites, he’s working mainly on simple WordPress sites for small businesses such as artists and photographers.
I am in the process of installing Rails for the Michael Hartl tutorial, though I’m not sure I have the resources to devote to playing around with Ruby and app development right now, so seeing this has thrown me for a loop.
Agreed. I guess you could possibly have both and cross-link, (i.e. a RoR site and a WordPress blog) but they’re two entirely different animals.
Off Topic:
I recently saw a thread here were a member was having trouble with his WordPress site. His site sold his Magento dev services. Seemed odd that the site would’nt be running Magento, but what do I know?
Wordpress is great for small or digital brochure kind of sites.
I’m not sure what space Rails fits into but I suspect its for those people who want complete and fine-grained database layout and control. This in turn implies you want to store a reasonable amount of data with special requirements on how you want to sort and display that data. Those sorts of web apps are not as common as digital brochure type websites by far.
If I count the number of times I wanted to put up a simple website then I just about automatically reach for wordpress as I know its optimised for most devices out there right out of the box.
If on the other hand I feel the need to banging my head against a brick wall then it would be those times I would reach for rails. I am sure it must be good for something but I haven’t figured it out yet.
If I want a simple database web app then I reach for Django/Python but then that’s what I’m comfortable with. Its never left me with the feeling of “why on earth did I choose this” as Rails 1.x did to me many years ago. Now Rails has evolved quite a bit since then and I feel like the astonished person that sees how the “green slime” has now evolved into the truly majestic “hairy monster” that stands before him.
Interesting thanks. I feel the same way about WordPress. I would have never been able to learn the intricacies and push the envelope in terms of design with css, if I had started out using WP. I suppose throwing Rails up on your resume looks more professional and allow a freelancer to charge more, who knows.
I’d love an example of a simple database app written with Django or Python. Is there actually a way to look at that code (not css/html) via Chrome Dev Tools?
I am sure it must be good for something but I haven’t figured it out yet.