Comments on David Alison's Blog: Finding a new way to learn Ruby on Rails

Thanks for the pointers. I think a good next step...

2008-05-12T10:54:29.381-04:00

Thanks for the pointers. I think a good next step is trial and error.

A quick and easy was to build virtualized RoR servers formatted for VMware, Parallels, Xen, or Amazon AMI is the Elastic Server On-Demand. No cost, no registration, just low-touch reliable assembly.

@Nicholas: I read that article and had some concer...

2008-05-11T21:43:06.550-04:00

@Nicholas: I read that article and had some concerns. I also read a couple of different articles by people like Michael Slater on how to scale Rails applications,, found the list of the top 100 Rails based sites (Twitter is #6 on the list) and finally spoke at length to the folks over at Engine Yard; a hosting service that focuses on Rails applications. They indicated that it is indeed possible to scale rails applications.

One of the areas I want to understand really well before I build my next application is where the choke-points in Ruby / Rails applications are and how best to address them.

Thinking long-term and responding to your "hope th...

2008-05-11T21:24:47.813-04:00

Thinking long-term and responding to your "hope that Ruby on Rails will be a good platform to build on," you might want to take a look at some of the recent news on RoR scaling issues as related to Twitter. It appears to be an open argument whether Rails really does have such issues, but that said, I think it's a debate to keep an eye on if you're looking to use RoR for any potentially large-scale app.

Thanks for the suggestions. I have also had simil...

2008-05-11T17:02:06.247-04:00

Thanks for the suggestions. I have also had similar experiences so seem I am on the right track or at least the same track.