This really has nothing to do about Iloilo. Just a way to tell everybody that the person behind the site is still alive.

Coding PHP non-stop daily for a year made me feel like I'm lagging further behind the latest web development bandwagon. It was two years ago that I heard about the new web development framework that had everybody excited, Ruby On Rails - in the US, at least. I was deep into Python and was polishing my PHP skills that I didn't even consider learning a new programming language Ruby, the one Ruby on Rails is built on (hence the "Ruby" in the name) much more pick up another framework.

PHP was great. Anybody can develop a web site or a web application in no time. CodeIgniter, the PHP framework we use, still rocks. But why learn another now? In the internet time, you can get yourself obsolete pretty fast. Newer, better, faster and more secure way to achieve what you want in software/application development are being produce everyday.

Why Ruby On Rails?
Over the past two weeks or so, I was rewriting our ever demanding webapp. Last week, I found myself getting increasingly bored with what I do. I need something to get me excited again. Python and PHP got me coding until dawn when I was learning them.

Python still amazes me. Naturally, I would go and get me a python web framework. I started with the more popular ones, Django and Turbogears. I couldn't get the sample applications to work. Next, I found Pylons. This time, I was successful. I could use this one. Reading through their documentation, I found features referencing Rails. I wonder why all web frameworks I get across try to emulate Rails. I wanted to find out.

Getting Started
I'm using Ubuntu, so installing Ruby On Rails was a piece of cake. Less than 20 minutes later, I have a working Rails application up and running. Now, I'm really excited. Development time in CodeIgniter is quick but this is even quicker.

Now I need some tools to make my experience with Rails - and Ruby, for that matter - wonderful. My problem with PHP is that I can't find a suitable editor in Linux for it. Currently, I'm using kate editor for everything but I'm longing for that complete programming environment or IDE. The likes of MS Visual Studio or Eclipse. PHP has PHPEclipse and PDT plugin for eclipse but the former have some issues with my eclipse install and the latter is still in pre version 1.0.

But Rails have Radrails. Also an Eclipse plugin. This time, installing the plugin is as easy as installing rails. I get this feeling that everything Rails related must be easy. That I'm going to find out after I'm done developing a more complex application using it.