Django OR Rails

Question

I am an ASP.NET developer, but want to learn other frameworks/language (open source).

Django and Rails both seem promising, but I am confused which one I should choose to start, or whether I should choose some other framework.

I know learning the language (python or ruby) is a must before starting with Django or Rails.

Answer 1

Doesn't really matter. Both languages have similar capabilities, both frameworks are fairly powerful. Python does have web frameworks other than Django though.

Answer 2

Voting for Rails. Cause I tried both, and I liked Rails better...

Answer 3

Try Django, is very simple, easy to learn, very powerful and has a very useful administration interface, which has no Rails. :)

Answer 4

Try both--work on a simple tutorial for each, and I'm sure you'll find that you enjoyed one over the other afterwards.

Answer 5

I prefer the control you get with django. But rails seems to have a larger and extremely active community as well as more deployment options. You have to decide what is more important to you.

Answer 6

Having just come from railsconf, I can at least say that the Rails community really does go above and beyond.

Answer 7

Django. Easy and fun

Answer 8

I've just started learning Django, after reading the python tutorial in a few evenings. Things I've noticed:

• In a sunday afternoon, I've managed to create two fully functional list/add pages.
• My code was already pretty short, and could even get more shorter in a few revisions.
• The views API, template language and ORM really allows you to speed up.
• It felt like flying! There is a truth in this one: http://xkcd.com/353/ :D

My take on Django vs Rails, based on what I've read so far:

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• In Python, things are more explicit. Using just notepad, you can still tell where a function is imported from.
• Rails will magically create methods on demand when you try to invoke them (e.g. find_by_... methods). Avoiding useless method programming, while requiring some more knowledge.

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• Django additionally increases productivity by offering generic views (think them as base classes).
• Rails additionally increases productivity by offering scaffolding (generating code).

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• Django requires to you specify your model explicity.
• Rails can extract your model at runtime from your database schema.

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• Django had performance in mind from day 1.
• In Rails programmer productivity is seen as more important.

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This is where IMHO the difference between Rails and Django imho really boils down to: Rails does things "by convention". Django requires you be a little more explicit, which in return allows the framework to perform better. Which one you'll like, depends pretty much on what kind of programmer you are. I'm obviously a Python/Django guy ;)

Both allow you to start a development server directly (like VS offers for .NET). Both allow FastCGI for hosting (like IIS app pools), can be run on the JVM (JRuby, Jython) and both have a specialized solutions for running an app pool (mod_wsgi in case of Django, mod_rails in case of Rails).

Answer 9

I'm ASP.NET developer that moved to Django some time ago. I'm really happy about my decision and choose of Django framework. As other guys say there are no huge differeneces in capabilities of both frameworks (django has nice admin panel, RoR has built-in migration system). At the end of the day they have simillar ammount of pros/cons in my opinion.

I advice you to do tutorial of both and decide which language suits you best (python or ruby).

Answer 10

I've worked with both. In my experience Python/Django has a bit of an edge in execution speed and memory usage. This seems to make a meaningful difference in larger applications.

I much prefer the way migrations are handled in Rails.

Answer 11

Django, it's a finished piece of software.

Answer 12

As an alternative you should also have a look at Grails. My top feature of Grails is the creation of a database schema based on you model classes. No more SQL.

For speed, Grails runs in the JVM and you can employ pure Java code whenever you feel the need for extra performance. Like Rails many convention based techniques feel like magic and need a little getting used but compensate the learning curve by boosting your productivity.

Answer 13

You shouldn't be asking which framework you should start learning. Frameworks are very good reflections of the languages they are built in. Hence first you should learn either python or ruby.

"Python vs Ruby" is just another holy war theme, but IMHO it's useless as "Vi vs Emacs". Long story short - try both and see which language fits your mindset best. Once you start mastering the language, the framework will seem more natural to you because you'll be acquainted with the language it is written in, hence knowing why's and how's of the framework itself.