[the_gastropod]

> is Rails really that much better than the alternatives?

I really think so. I've _looked_. I've tried all sorts of other web frameworks. And, admittedly, I am most familiar with Rails, so I'm maybe a bit biased. But it's hard to find anything that comes particularly close to the productivity of using Rails. The tooling's great, the ecosystem is great, it's organized well, the documentation is good. It's just... really a pleasant experience to use.

Elixir's Phoenix comes pretty close, as does PHP's Laravel, imo. Special shout out for Rust's Loco, too, which is relatively new, but looking potentially promising.

I recommend giving Rails an open-minded tire kicking. I think you'll be surprised by how quickly you can get going.

[brigandish]

I've used Rails (I've possibly committed to it, though I've forgotten if I have), my point is that I don't know those other languages' frameworks well enough to judge the difference, but I don't see any complaints.

You even seem to admit as much while being most familiar with Rails. Do you know anyone who'd love to switch over? Or would you choose it ahead of a competitor if you were green? There'd have to be a large competitive advantage.

[adamtaylor_13]

I’d jump ship if there was a mature, stable competitor in the Typescript ecosystem.

Unfortunately I think language differences mean it’s going to be a long time before anyone catches up. Ruby just makes for some really interesting wizardry that as far as I can tell isn’t possible (or perhaps not as ergonomic?) in Typescript.

Furthermore there seems to be a cultural difference. I haven’t met many JS devs who came to the Ruby side and were like, “Aw shit this is better.” (I’m one such dev, but I hated Ruby and Rails for a really long time before I changed my opinion and embraced it.)

But at this point in my career I value stable boring technology way more than my personal taste du-jour so I code in Ruby and really love Rails.