if by whiskey

I gave an effusive talk on Rails at work after completing my first project. Coming from a Java background, I was impressed that it was easy to pick up, get started and get things done with less faff than J2EE. Convention was the new king, and I his happy servant.

Buoyed by my new found productivity, released from my shackles of indecision (which MVC framework? What about transactions? How will this work in a cluster?) I could just jump right it and get on with building the site. Every line of code was going to the customer. No need to worry about the tricky stuff, it’s a full stack framework and there’s a plugin for everything.

But what has working with Rails done for me, as a former Java developer? Well the project timescales are generally tighter and the work productive yet stressful. But these are subjective measures, what about the cold, hard cash?

Figures are 3 month averages, source

I’ve included a variety of technologies which fit within the web development domain because I’m conscious that there aren’t that many Rails jobs listed. The lower salary may just be a result of lower demand – I don’t have any numbers for the supply side of the equation. Currently Rails does seem to sit more towards the PHP rather J2EE end of the salary scale.

Less filthy lucre == less snowflake moments

At the moment, Rails is great if you are in the product development business and you want to get Wet Dream 2.0 to market on a budget. It’s great if you’re a small company aggressively bidding to win work at open tender. It’s great if you are a lot smarter than me, on the lecture circuit with a cool blog and a bunch of plugins under your belt.

But if you are an average Joe Coder, choose wisely. Perhaps ruminating over application architecture decisions and marshaling endless XML files was overpaid – or maybe “convention over configuration” makes web development easier, and cheaper. Either way I’d better raise my game: If I’m going to install acts_as_french_fries I at least want to have written it.