Typically the guy or gal with the most developing tools under their belt wins. It leads to the sweetest projects. The most perks. The best salary.
This is where Ruby on Rails (RoR)—and learning the framework—comes in. If you’ve been building websites for long you have no doubt heard about RoR. It’s a full-stack framework that covers both front and back end design. It’s at the heart of sites like Twitter, 43Things and Basecamp. Major Brands like Amazon and eBay even have RoR projects. And in the hands of a versatile developer RoR is a potent tool. Let me show you how.
1. Stalled Career
I don’t care how old you are. An old dog can learn new tricks. An old dog NEEDS to learn new tricks if he wants to stay current, marketable and in demand.
If your current job has hit a snag and you find yourself bored (and maybe even threatened with a layoff), then taking the time to learn Ruby on Rails may be just the thing you need to put a jolt back into your step. And give your boss something to think about.
2. Tired of Other People Getting Hired
Don’t you hate it—going through the interview process only to find out that someone else was picked instead of you? It could’ve been for a promotion at your current job or at a new company.
What’s worse is when you are job hunting and you stumble across dozens of opportunities (regarding the demand for Ruby developers, see no. 16)—but you aren’t qualified for because they want RoR experience and you don’t have it. That’s not a good feeling.
3. Bored
If you are like me, then you are unapologetically curious, incorrigibly creative and easily bored. This probably also means you are super-duper smart, hyper competitive and a sucker for a good challenge.
Learning Ruby on Rails just might be what you need right now. And why not—it’s a heck of an effective way to kill time.
4. Get More Things Done
The language (Ruby) on the framework (Rails) means that you can accomplish more with less, better structured code. Since code can be re-used changes are easy, making iteration and experimentation painless. Learning Ruby on Rails will help you knock out that killer idea list you’ve been sitting on for months.
5. Eliminate Lame Tasks
Rails is built on Ruby, the dynamic and object-oriented language. This means that you can better use your time. For instance, RoR will handle all database communications, provide a template system for handling page sections and layouts, process Ajax updates and a wide set of plugins that make feature implementing easy. In other words, RoR takes care of the boring stuff while you can focus on the cool.
6. Building a Complex Website
Building a website is probably the most common scenario in which you would use RoR. However, you could also use PHP. Why use one over the other? The argument goes like this: if you are just adding simple functionality to a basic, straightforward website, then use PHP. On the other hand, if you are building a complex website or app that involves a database then you’ll want to use Rails.
7. Plan on Building More Websites in the Future
Learning a new language and tool takes time and effort. So if you think that you might be able to use Ruby on a single project—and don’t think you will have to use it again—it’s probably not worth the effort.
However, if you plan on continuing to build complex websites and applications then the investment in learning Ruby on Rails is probably worth it.
8. Serve a Particular Market
Some developers like to work in a particular market. So they build a set of specialized skills that suits that market. This will lead them to usually being hired by designers who don’t have expertise in a set of skills like RoR. This means you won’t be working for clients. You will be hired for your particular skill set by an agency.
The other scenario is that you work directly for the client. They don’t care whether you use PHP or Ruby. They just want you to build them a website that will do X, Y and Z. It’s your job to figure out how to effectively do that, so knowing both PHP and Ruby is a must.
9. Join a Great Community
Even though RoR is a relatively new framework, it has certainly built up a robust community full of nice people who want to help you learn. These communities are where best practices are shared, reinforced and even questioned. You will feel comfortable asking just about any question.