Re: Re: [Micronet] Ruby on Rails 1.0 released today: Web app development environment

On Dec 19, 2005, at 8:40 PM, John Ingham wrote:

> Scott,
>
> The decision to use CF was made before I arrived but I think it was
> a good one considering needs at the time. My sense is that it's
> selection was due to tight integration with databases, availability
> of a windows server version

PHP has both of those :)

> as well and formal support channels.

I think that's probably the biggest driver for departments that
choose closed source tools over open -- the perception of readily
available support channels (though there are certainly plenty of
support channels for OSS, and you can even buy commercial support
for most open source technologies, if you swing that way).

>
> My preference would have been JSP only because of it's relationship
> to Java. I was actually programing in PHP prior to CF in any case,
> PHP is a fine web programming tool. I think they were more
> concerned with support and ease of use than anything else, not that
> concerned with the cost of the CF server and development tools.
>

I've always liked that about CF, the way it compiles CF apps into
little java servlets or beans. PHP is getting more tightly integrated
with Java with each release, but it still doesn't do that. On the
other hand, a lot of organizations are realizing that they don't
need a Java back-end after all, that PHP/CF/ASP/whatever work just
fine soup to nuts. Interesting piece on that:

Andreessen: PHP succeeding where Java isn't
http://news.com.com/Andreessen+PHP+succeeding+where+Java+isnt/
2100-1012_3-5903187.html

>
> Dreaming, wouldn't it be nice to use any application environment
> you need to get the job done? I would like to see the campus
> provide development accounts for not only Oracle but CF, PHP, PERL,
> JSP, Java and cutting edge stuff like Ruby and or Ruby on Rails as
> well. I have the impression that some kind of campus wide web
> development environment is being considered and or worked on at the
> moment. I would like to see a kind of universal tiered, DEV, QA and
> PROD, web development account wherein a developer can use whatever
> language and or DB system needed to get the job done. A kind of
> server side Eclipse for campus web application developers.

That would be very cool. Although if a dept leans on an external
development server to work in some language not supported on their
own servers, where are they going to deploy when development is
done? That's one of the reasons we like to run our own servers, so
we have that kind of flexibility. But I'd still be all for a UC-
supported technology sandbox. Sounds really fun. Rails anyone? :)

Best,
Scot

--
Scot Hacker, Webmaster
UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
http://journalism.berkeley.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The following was automatically added to this message by the list server:
Webnet information is available at http://webnet.berkeley.edu. Email sent to this list is archived at http://ls.berkeley.edu/mail/webnet/ . This archive is open to the general public and browsable by search engine spiders, email-address harvesting robots, your bosses, etc.