Question

Why would I choose Ruby on Rails instead of PHP or ASP.NET when starting a new middle-sized project that has no restrictions? (not limited by hardware/operating system/memory/etc)

Answer 1

It’s not a “web programming language” (whatever that means); it’s a web application framework written in Ruby (a programming language, though certainly not just for the web!).

I’d say the primary advantages of Ruby on Rails (RoR) are:

• the productivity of the Ruby programming language in general
• the “Convention over Configuration” paradigm that decreases how much the developer must write to see a webapp running in their browser
• stronger adherence to “Don’t Repeat Yourself” (DRY) principles than PHP or ASP.NET (though you can still repeat yourself all you like if you try hard enough !)