Simpltry

Recently, the dude from [CD Baby](http://cdbaby.com/ “CD Baby: let’s find you some great new music…”) wrote an [article](http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2007/09/7_reasons_i_switched_back_to_p_1.html “7 reasons I switched back to PHP after 2 years on Rails - O'Reilly Ruby”) about why he switched from PHP to Rails and back again (AKA “a switchers tale”). He outlined these 7 reasons:

1. “IS THERE ANYTHING RAILS/RUBY CAN DO THAT PHP CAN’T DO? … (thinking)… NO.”
2. OUR ENTIRE COMPANY’S STUFF WAS IN PHP: DON’T UNDERESTIMATE INTEGRATION
3. DON’T WANT WHAT I DON’T NEED
4. IT’S SMALL AND FAST
5. IT’S BUILT TO MY TASTES
6. I LOVE SQL
7. PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES ARE LIKE GIRLFRIENDS: THE NEW ONE IS BETTER BECAUSE *YOU* ARE BETTER

I think the article should have been titled, “How to Say Crazy Things and Get Attention.” Because, really, take a look at [CD Baby](http://cdbaby.com/ “CD Baby: let’s find you some great new music…”), if you knew that was the site you were building, it shouldn’t take more that 2 - 4 months full time (in any language). How 2 people could have failed to build that in two years with rails is beyond me. I feel like we don’t have the whole story. Then the second dude who was working on the project gets hired at [37 signals](http://www.37signals.com/ “Simple software to help you get organized: 37signals”) (you know those guys hire crap developers).

And the statements in the article that aren’t crazy, are mundane. Like this paraphrased gem, when you look at old code don’t blame the language, blame yourself because it is most likely due to your inexperience. Brilliant, so as I do something over and over I get better at it. Really? That is so profound, next you are going to tell me the grass isn’t always greener. OH WAIT, you did tell me that.

I went ahead and rewrote his list the way I read it.

1. Most languages can be used to accomplish any task, don’t spend two years deciding on a language.
2. Don’t throw away code that is valuable.
3. It is best not to look at new technology if you don’t think you’ll use it.
4. I perceive something to be too big, so it must be slow.
5. I don’t like the way rails was built, so it might not be right for you.
6. See number 5.
7. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side

This weekend I competed in [Rails Rumble](http://railsrumble.com/ “Rails Rumble September 8-9, 2007″). It was a lot of fun. I built a community editable map to enter happy hours. Sort of like a wiki, only in map form. It is a *little* rough, because I only had 48 hours to build it.

Not only did I only have 48 hours to build it, I also had to play system administrator. Which meant learning the following things, mod_proxy, mod_proxy_balancer, mongrel_cluster, capistrano and several other technologies. Learning these things was worth the sacrificed weekend on its own.

I was also able to use my open source js project, [http://widgets.simpltry.com/](http://widgets.simpltry.com/ “Simpltry Javascript Widgets”). And dust off my [Google Maps API](http://www.google.com/apis/maps/ “Google Maps API”) and [Google AJAX Search API](http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxsearch/ “Google AJAX Search API”) skills.

All in all I am extremely excited to present. [Happy Hour](http://happyhour.railsrumble.com)! My entry into rails rumble. This competition is judged by “the community”, which means that it is a popularity contest. So [go vote](http://vote.railsrumble.com/ “Rails Rumble 2007″) for the best app.

I am happy to note that I didn’t spend one second in Internet Explorer. And it is working!

One more thing, the I used a rails plugin called [geokit](http://geokit.rubyforge.org/ “GeoKit for Rails: home”), it worked so seamlessly out of the box that I almost fell over.

Good luck to all who have built an application.