Comments on: Is Rails suffering the same problems as PHP?

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:58:49 +0000

I have never used Ruby on Rails, I am not even sure what it is, I know its a framework to use Ajax of sorts but I have never sat and looked at the code. I will say that I am a PHP programmer and have programmed many things with it, but to say it is easy is like saying auto mechanics is easy. Working on PHP is easy, but anybody with a knowledge of C++ or even Visual BASIC can easily learn the syntax. It is like that with any language though, I could easily pick up C++ because I knew Javascript and before Javascript I knew QBasic. They are all the same, just different syntax.

By: S. Potter

S. Potter — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:01:03 +0000

I think you have hit the nail on the head: “Some say one of the “downfalls” of PHP is that its so easy to write applications and just about anybody can write a PHP if they put their mind to it and learn the syntax.”

I totally agree. It isn’t people that write good PHP I am against, but if more than 95% (ok, I pulled that number out of thin air) of people that write PHP are just plainly bad at software development generally, I do steer clear of people with *just* PHP experience unless they can converse intelligently (in a fair and balanced way - unless they are indulging my elitist snobbery for fun and games) about software development on the whole. I am also super weary of the “agile” clones that repeat the same things about being “agile”. They are VERY good at talking the talk, but…. they aren’t fair and balanced (or they are “fair and balanced” like Fox News).

One thing you have also gotten spot-on is the “syntax” part of that statement (at least I suspect this is what you were getting at, reading between the lines).

People invest too much time in learning *just* the syntax, where understanding the philosophy of a language/environment/framework is far more important. I laugh when I am in interviews and they ask me to write syntax on the board (and complain when I forget to put semi-colons or other little things) instead of asking me about my approach to problems and my reasoning for the approach given the context, whether code- or higher-level. Of course, asking about commonly used APIs is gauge a person’s experience, but often I find the best developers don’t learn APIs verbatim, instead they keep the Javadoc, RDoc, Pydoc, etc. up in a web browser for reference. The questions you asked the candidate here, however, are VERY basic, so I would definitely keep those as initial questions to gauge their level on an initial phone interview!

One suggestion I have (if you aren’t already doing this), is to seek specifically Ruby developers that were on the scene before Rails that might have some Rails experience.

By: Peter Harkins

Peter Harkins — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:30:51 +0000

I only have two questions that I’ll always ask in an interview. The first one is, “How do you keep up-to-date?” I don’t care if they read books or blogs, visit conferences, or hang out on mailing lists — as long as they have some interest in and plan to always be learning. With the second one, I wait for to hear about something they like and know well and ask, “And what do you dislike about it?” If they have an answer, it shows they’re able to introspect and analyze things, to compare and judge solutions. Because programming is about solving problems and weighing trade-offs, I want to know that candidates are continually adding to their toolbox and know how to choose the right tool when the time comes.

These are pretty fundamental things. For Rails specifically? I dunno, I’d like to know that the person knows some HTTP, rather than “The user clicks a link, insert magic here, my HTML appears…” I’d also want to know that they understand Ruby’s open classes so they get how plugins work and could write their own.

(BTW, I think posting comments here is broken unless you send a referer. “This page cannot be used alone.”)