First, Thanks for this post and I'd like to say: I do agree with almost all of your arguments.
But ;) not on the conclusions...
Well I'm not a fortune teller ;)
> First of all, Ruby.
Ruby (advanced features) are complex but ruby leverage the learning curve. You can start by learning few tricks and then get better by the time... Back then when I learned Java it was more painfull :( (I started with Jtable in a swing applet, arg! bad memories!)
> Anyone who wants to succeed in the Web arena must (...) convince programmers
I think the blog video did just that ;)
> (...) also be an easy sell to their management.
Something that must be done and will be hard but the fact that many rails developpers are coming from j2ee and are well known architects will surely help...
take a look at gary's post http://www.jroller.com/page/dgeary?entry=tipping_rails
> Ruby on Rails itself.
Magic is good because it makes developpers more productive which is something your pointy haired boss will surely like ;)
> Still no credible IDE.
I'm not a vi/emacs addict at all!
But you must have missed something call "radrails".
It's an amazing plugin who just won an eclipse award (http://www.radrails.org/blog/show/56)
Take a look at it ;)
> Fanaticism
I hope I'm not like one of those lisp guys ;)
I agree that staying humble is the way to go since rails is not perfect either
> Crowd of a single mind.
There are other inovative web frameworks (http://code.whytheluckystiff.net/camping/)
But The fact that one of them is the reference is a breath of fresh air coming from J2ee (I think there are to many of them out there).
Also this didn't bothered the ASP developpers to have only one option during all the last past years...
> Enterprise capabilities and scalability unclear.
I found some amazing numbers about the shift to rails (http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/articles/2006/02/01/secrets-behind-ruby-on-rails-the-numbers)
400 000 Downloads
550 develppers / 50 countries
25000 Agile web dev with rails books sold
(http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/12/ruby_book_sales_surpass_python.html)
o'reilly ruby books sales up to +1552% since last year
more than python book sales
About performances see the great post of Justin Gehtlan (http://blogs.relevancellc.com/articles/2005/04/04/some-numbers-at-last)
who wrote http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/bfljava/
The numbers are amazing too!
He just changed is blog look, the post is just one big block :(
> Lack of support from Internet Providers
Rails is young but I sure it will come at time goes by... you already have http://www.typhon.net/en/ if you're looking for one ;)
When I can choose between java and rails, I personnaly take rails because I don't want to use my spare time on configuring hibernate mapping files and making yet an other ant file ;)
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