Alex Williams

Over the last few months i’ve been coding intensively in Ruby on Rails (learning) in order to build my first commercial web application.

As many other people in this industry, I spent quite some time browsing RoR cheat sheets, books, forums, wikis and blogs in order to gain as much knowledge as possible. When I was finally ready to build my app (after completing every possible tutorial), I jumped in head first without thinking about the consequences.

The problem, which I obviously overlooked, was that I had no idea how to build a REAL web application on my own using RoR. I somewhat overestimated my knowledge and expertise, and I think I fell flat on my face.

Why would a budding entrepreneur purposely shoot himself in the foot by coding something in such an unfamiliar language? Because it’s cool? Because it’s easy(er)? The reality is, when running your own company, some things such as technology choices require a certain degree of familiarity. You need to maximise the use of your current knowledge and expertise. You need to be honest and you need to know when something is not working for you, and quickly react and adapt to it.

I’ve decided I need to stop drinking the Ruby cool-aid and go back to my roots. In regards to web apps, PHP is where I started and it’s where I need to be. I’ve written a large amount of web applications in PHP, and despite its limitations, it has proven itself worthy of my time… and unfortunately I don’t have anymore time to fool around with something I haven’t mastered yet.

I’m not knocking on Ruby or Rails. I think it’s an absolutely incredible language and framework, but when it comes time to pushing out web apps quickly and getting a functional prototype up and running, then I need something i’m comfortable and well experienced with.

I will continue to play with Ruby and develop things on the side, eventually version 2 or 3 of my app will be migrated to RoR (with the help of fellow developers maybe?), but for now I need to refocus my attention.

Stay tuned for more details as to the availability of the first beta, developed in the language I know best ;)