I hear claims that Ruby on Rails makes web applications ten times faster to write. Is this really true? Do they just make a bunch of tools to make the simple stuff fast and the hard stuff impossible (without serious refactoring)? Can it handle difficult web problems like an advanced searches and AJAX webgrids? Can’t other languages just use the Rails techniques and be just as fast to code?
I’m not trying to bait a holy war on languages. I’m not even asking if its better/worse than other languages with regard to syntax, security, execution speed, memory usage, etc. This question is just about time to code. Let’s say I have an idea for a really cool (somewhat complicated) webapp and want it out ASAP, will Ruby on Rails give me an edge or is that claim just hype? What would you use?
Martin Fowler did a survey on Ruby on Rails productivity by asking 30 project leads what their subjective estimate was of RoR’s productivity compared with “the best mainstream tools you know”. The chart seems to show at least a 2x improvement.
As @hgimenez notes, this survey is part of Fowler’s Ruby at ThoughtWorks, which sheds a lot of light on this issue.