Hi, I'm just about to start learning ASP.NET. But I've heard lots of people telling me how good Ruby on Rails is and how you can build the same site 10 times quicker with RoR that ASP.NET.

 

What should I learn, do and what do you all think?

 

Cheers.

 

Rich

Hi, I'm just about to start learning ASP.NET. But I've heard lots of people telling me how good Ruby on Rails is and how you can build the same site 10 times quicker with RoR that ASP.NET.

 

What should I learn, do and what do you all think?

 

Cheers.

 

Rich

 

french if youve got french customers, only messing obviously.. oh and i dont need anyone to point out that im not funny either because i already know lol

 

anyway, depends what you want to do mate, i take it you want to learn a serverside language, im not an expert on the different languages but i know they all have there ups and downs, different ones are easier to learn than others, others you can do more with, some you need less scripting to do more things (aka RoR), and it goes on so it all depends exactly what you want to do.

 

Also costings another thing, for example a server that allows use of php is cheaper than one that lets you use RoR,

ive learnt PHP 4 and i find that pretty easy, a pretty common language so youll always have help on the topic like although everyones moving onto PHP 5 so if your going to learn PHP learn the new version rather than be lazy like me and stick with the one ive known from the beginning.

 

Hope that helps, Gary

Like Gary said it's all a matter of preference and what you want to build. I am a rails man, however, i have been through many languages and frameworks in my time (PHP, ASP, ColdFusion to name a few). It is true that you can write applications in rails extremely fast compared to other frameworks and languages but the awesomeness doesn't just stop there.

 

Ruby is an easy language to learn, however, if you have come from a syntactically strict language like Java then it will confuse you as it doesn't force you to have semi-colons and such at the end of lines (although you can if you want). Rails supports something called testing which allows you to write in near English tests for your application which you can run with one command from the terminal, it will iterate through your application and point out errors and other mishaps. Rails also allows you to embed production ready code into your application with extreme ease, just include it in your application then run a few commands and you can have a full authentication system running in minutes, other languages this would take days (unless you used existing code but even then you would need to configure it to your liking).

 

Rails isn't database dependent, it has 3 built in modes (development, testing, production - all self explanatory) which allows you to develop using SQLite, test with MySQL and run on a server with PostgreSQL. Means you don't have to change tonnes of code if someone changes your the database software.

 

Like Gary said rails hosting is more expensive than that say of PHP but the money you saved developing the application (time == money) then the higher hosting cost is just redundant.

 

IMO rails is the future, their are more rails jobs than their are rails developers so the market is good for finding work.

 

In the end the decision is up to you.

Edited May 22, 201115 yr by rubots

My personal opinion is that asp.net is far too bloated for making basic to medium size sites, having used it for 3 years in my last job.

Sure, there are loads of "inbuilt" instant controls etc. which make it on the surface seem like a breeze, but you start trying to customise or change the behaviour of those controls and you get tangled up a lot of the time.

I'd go RoR - although I haven't used it , I've never really heard a bad report about it. Only good things.

I suggest you to learn PHP 5 and how to use it(specially oop), there are already many and many books released and you can download them as e-book as well.

Hi, I'm just about to start learning ASP.NET. But I've heard lots of people telling me how good Ruby on Rails is and how you can build the same site 10 times quicker with RoR that ASP.NET.

 

What should I learn, do and what do you all think?

 

Cheers.

 

Rich

 

PHP = FREE AND RELIABLE

ASP = EXPENSIVE AND STUPID

PHP = FREE AND RELIABLE

ASP = EXPENSIVE AND STUPID

 

HAHA...... my sentiments exactly. My computer has nearly gone out of a second story window many times because of asp.bloody net the so called "future" of web develpment. What a joke.

Oh yeah - and good luck trying to wrestle those .net pages into validation. It's like oil and water.

Having said that, I never got onto .net 4 - who knows? It could be a lot better. But that's what they said about IE9.

Wow that was pretty unanimous, and what I was expecting. Not only did no one have anything good to say about ASP.NET, even worse, it was barely even mentioned. But what about job availablilty?

 

Basically, I'm a web designer in a job as a Junior Web Dev position. ASP.NET devs and sites are who and what I'm working with and I don't know what to do because I need to start learning a programming language well. As I'm 29 and have only been in IT a couple of years I need to make the right decision first time.

 

Are there any benefits to being an ASP.NET dev or the others?

 

(And cheers all for your help)

Sorry *over the others

Rails developers earn more on average.

 

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/asp.net.do

 

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/ruby on rails.do

 

Money isn't everything for everyone but if i get paid more for using a much more efficient and elegant framework then so be it.

 

Edit: Disregard the chart at the bottom it is circa 2004 which was before rails even went public, in fact i doubt the creator had even finished a stable version by then.

Edited May 22, 201115 yr by rubots

It's very convincing all this. What about job availability though?

 

It say that ASP.NET, which is ranked right up at the 17th best job in IT, currently has a massive 12,152 jobs available. Ruby on Rails, ranked way down at 504th, has only 410 jobs available.

Edited May 22, 201115 yr by futureproof

Just to clarify .NET is an application framework which you can code in various different languages, ASP is one of them, along with C# and J#. In my opinion ASP.NET is a going out of 'fashion' in favor of C#.NET. So if you were going to choose .NET then I'd recommend learning C# over ASP. Also Ruby on Rails is an application framework for Ruby, so it would be Ruby you'd learn first before moving on to using RoR.

 

The advantage of learning a .NET language is that they already have massive online followings/communities, lots of tutorials, courses and industry certification (MCSE's) are readily available. There are also lots of .NET jobs, theres over 1000 .NET jobs on monster vs 118 ruby jobs. Check google trends - http://www.google.com/trends?q=C%23%2C+%22ruby+on+rails%22&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 as well, as RoR matured its lost some of its initial momentum/buzz. That said there are still lots of Ruby sites and the community is still very active.

 

I also think you're going to get biased answers on this forum too, while there are some web professionals here, I'd say the large majority of people on here are amateur developers/students, who are generally going to have an anti Microsoft point of view so I think they would automatically adopt something thats not Microsoft because its so cool to have a mac. If you asked this question to an IT careers/recruitment company they'd say .NET

 

So the above probably puts me firmly in the .NET camp right? but if I know what I know now (working as a programmer) and I had to choose a language to learn between C# and Ruby I'd probably go for Ruby. The kind of companies that make agile decisions to use technology like ruby are the kind of companies I'd rather work for rather than a big corporation where your just a ******* slave with a keyboard looking up at your MCSE certificate.

Edited May 23, 201115 yr by Jock

Just to clarify .NET is an application framework which you can code in various different languages, ASP is one of them, along with C# and J#.

 

Although I think anyone would have to be mad now to consider using classic ASP as their code of choice when they have C#, J#, or VB code-behind to choose from. So even the name "ASP.net" sounds a bit antiquated and dead now. To me it seems that general consensus is that classic ASP is pretty much defunkt now. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, classic ASP isn't exactly code-behind as far as I know, it's spaghetti (again, correct me if I'm wrong, I only used it once!).

 

In my opinion ASP.NET is a going out of 'fashion' in favor of C#.NET. So if you were going to choose .NET then I'd recommend learning C# over ASP.

 

Yeah definitely - I didn't even bother with classic ASP as it seemed dead even 3 years ago. Just started with C#. Good language. J# never experienced but guessing it's even better.

 

I also think you're going to get biased answers on this forum too, while there are some web professionals here, I'd say the large majority of people on here are amateur developers/students, who are generally going to have an anti Microsoft point of view.

 

Erm... I'm not sure about this. I think it's actually the kind of sites that most people do on here lend themselves much more favourably to PHP based stuff. And having said that, I'm not exactly anti-Microsoft personally for example, I like a few of their products (Windows 7, Office, Media Player etc.) and I really don't care whether it's Apple, Pc, Microsoft, Opensource or whatever so long as it gets the job done. But I still hate .NET bearing all that in mind.

 

So the above probably puts me firmly in the .NET camp right? but if I know what I know now (working as a programmer) and I had to choose a language to learn between C# and Ruby I'd probably go for Ruby. The kind of companies that make agile decisions to use technology like ruby are the kind of companies I'd rather work for rather than a big corporation where your just a ******* slave with a keyboard looking up at your MCSE certificate.

 

Yeah that nails what I was going to say - .NET IMHO is so popular because all the companies think they "should" be using it, because they've bought all the gumph about "do this without a single line of coding" and all that rubbish. Well in my experience to customise everything to how my company wanted it took far more coding and time than it would have done starting from scratch in PHP.

Sure if you want to quickly link up to a datasource and stick some cookie cutter controls on the page, very quick. Anything past that and I found it started to get laboured, and I wished I was using PHP. However I didn't have a choice.

 

Having said that, I think where .NET comes into it's own is on bigger scale data driven web applications that are indefinitely expandable. Try it for smaller stuff though and it's really cracking a peanut with a steamroller.

 

With RoR and PHP5 on the block, .NET suddenly looks very unattractive for a majority of sites.

.NET seems very popular with those who are jumping on the bandwagon about getting that straight laced corporate Microsoft buzz like Jock says. If you want anything creative, perhaps better avoid.

Having good knowledge of programming languages is good especially, if you are developer. However, the scripting language depends on the website requirements using which it is going to be built. People have different requirements so its better to have overall knowledge about multiple programming languages for a developer.

Sorry I wrote that when I was really tired, I meant to say VB! not ASP! lol

Having good knowledge of programming languages is good especially, if you are developer. However, the scripting language depends on the website requirements using which it is going to be built. People have different requirements so its better to have overall knowledge about multiple programming languages for a developer.

 

what a stupid spammy reply.

Just to clarify .NET is an application framework which you can code in various different languages, ASP is one of them, along with C# and J#. In my opinion ASP.NET is a going out of 'fashion' in favor of C#.NET. So if you were going to choose .NET then I'd recommend learning C# over ASP. Also Ruby on Rails is an application framework for Ruby, so it would be Ruby you'd learn first before moving on to using RoR.

 

The advantage of learning a .NET language is that they already have massive online followings/communities, lots of tutorials, courses and industry certification (MCSE's) are readily available. There are also lots of .NET jobs, theres over 1000 .NET jobs on monster vs 118 ruby jobs. Check google trends - http://www.google.com/trends?q=C%23%2C+%22ruby+on+rails%22&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 as well, as RoR matured its lost some of its initial momentum/buzz. That said there are still lots of Ruby sites and the community is still very active.

 

I also think you're going to get biased answers on this forum too, while there are some web professionals here, I'd say the large majority of people on here are amateur developers/students, who are generally going to have an anti Microsoft point of view so I think they would automatically adopt something thats not Microsoft because its so cool to have a mac. If you asked this question to an IT careers/recruitment company they'd say .NET

 

So the above probably puts me firmly in the .NET camp right? but if I know what I know now (working as a programmer) and I had to choose a language to learn between C# and Ruby I'd probably go for Ruby. The kind of companies that make agile decisions to use technology like ruby are the kind of companies I'd rather work for rather than a big corporation where your just a ******* slave with a keyboard looking up at your MCSE certificate.

 

Jock you make valid points, however, its possible to write rails applications without knowledge of ruby. Although, to do more complex things you will need to become familiar with ruby syntax.

 

At the end of the day OP its down to you to decide what path you wish to follow.

Awesome response guys, seriously.

 

What I want to do eventually is create a site like an internet dating site for instance, that has a massive database of people, massive amount of people online at the same time, you get the idea. So, from what you are saying, C#.NET would be suitable for what I wanted to do, though the build would take me longer, and so would learning it all? Is that fair?

 

I'm pretty sure Plenty Of Fish is build in ASP.NET, isn't it?

 

Or, is there a better programming language/framework to use to build a site like this?

Edited May 23, 201115 yr by futureproof

I'm not much of a back-end developer but from my understanding with dealing with both Rails and .NET (and PHP to a lesser extent) at work is that a good developer will produce good results. It doesn't really matter which language you are using.

 

Jobwise, over here (Boston, MA, USA area) there are a pretty good number of Rails jobs but they are typically at startups. If you aren't comfortable working in that kind of environment then there are countless .NET developer jobs available at larger institutions. You'd find work with either language over here.

 

I, naturally, can't speak to the UK job market, but if there is a healthy entrepreneurial community I imagine it's not too far from what I see over here.

I thaugh PHP, MYSQL and in combination of Magneto would be the best for you.

Awesome response guys, seriously.

 

What I want to do eventually is create a site like an internet dating site for instance, that has a massive database of people, massive amount of people online at the same time, you get the idea. So, from what you are saying, C#.NET would be suitable for what I wanted to do, though the build would take me longer, and so would learning it all? Is that fair?

 

I'm pretty sure Plenty Of Fish is build in ASP.NET, isn't it?

 

Or, is there a better programming language/framework to use to build a site like this?

 

Yes Plenty of Fish is built with asp.net.

 

From the replies you have given it seems you have your heart set on ASP so stick with it, and Dave is totally right.

Awesome response guys, seriously.

 

What I want to do eventually is create a site like an internet dating site for instance, that has a massive database of people, massive amount of people online at the same time, you get the idea. So, from what you are saying, C#.NET would be suitable for what I wanted to do, though the build would take me longer, and so would learning it all? Is that fair?

 

I'm pretty sure Plenty Of Fish is build in ASP.NET, isn't it?

 

Or, is there a better programming language/framework to use to build a site like this?

 

I've not heard of plenty of fish before but Match.com is written in .NET and I'm pretty sure Mingle2 is written in RoR, okcupid is in C++ (i think) so it just shows you you can write any kind of site in pretty much any language.

I've worked with classic ASP, ASP.NET and php (amongst others) and I think a big criteria for the language you choose is the kind of customer/employer you want to cater to. If you want to go down the corporate root then ASP.NET perhaps has the edge. It's more suited to intranet sites and has better integration with Office applications, Outlook, Active Directory and Microsoft SQL server. In those circumstances it can be more productive, but move into the faster moving public web arena it can be too cumbersome.

 

If you're looking to become a more public facing web developer then php or an associated framework is the way forward. I'm of the school where you should learn the fundamentals of php first then progress to a framework.

I'll assume you're talking ASP.NET. It may be expensive and stupid to a PHP person. However, ASP.NET is used a lot more in the corporate world - mostly due to managers being obsessed with things like Microsoft certification etc.

 

Unfortunately, saying a widely used language like ASP.NET is a very narrow view indeed :/ It all depends where you work, as not everywhere will use PHP.

 

Just FYI, I'm a PHP person, with a little experience used ASP.NET and medium amount using classic ASP.

 

Agreed.

Cool, well after reading all this, I think it'll be best to stick with ASP.NET. I'll always have work with this, once I've grasped this somewhat, then I can learn others if I feel I should for whatever reason.

 

Cheers for your help!

Cool, well after reading all this, I think it'll be best to stick with ASP.NET. I'll always have work with this, once I've grasped this somewhat, then I can learn others if I feel I should for whatever reason.

 

Cheers for your help!

 

Yeah I mean when I was working at a company I was doing .NET at work, and a bit of PHP projects on the side. Works quite well if you can avoid you brain melting in the process.

And with .NET you are indeed probably always assured corporate work, dull though it potentially may be. And if you keep the PHP going in the background, you can eventually make a more informed decision as to which way you want to go.

 

Edit - Sorry I forgot you were talking about Ruby. But you know what I mean. It's free etc. so no reason you can't have a go in your spare time at no cost to yourself except time.

Edited May 24, 201115 yr by Gibson

Cool, I'm clear on what's what now.

 

Just one more question - why is ASP.NET not too good for building small sites?

Just one more question - why is ASP.NET not too good for building small sites?

 

I wouldn't say it's "Not good" for building small sites, it's just that I personally found it overkill, overly bloated, and difficult to customise. Perhaps that was just me, and an expert .NET developer might disagree. The main point I'd say was by the time I'd wrestled with the control behaviour and styling adn all that kind of stuff, the way it does ajax, the fact that it's difficult to have more than one form on a page, javascript issues, etc. etc., it seemed that I could have built that from the ground up with a much more lightweight framework in a shorter time.

Having said that, you can build your own controls in .NET. But if you're going to rebuild everything in .NET fom the gruond up, you start wondering why you're actually using .NET in the first place.

That's just my take on it, like I say, I'm guessing the .NET experts might well disagree with that.