Let’s face it. The 37signals guys are the web startup Mean Girls. I mean OMG! They are like, soooo popular, and we soooo want to be just like them.

cough

Kidding aside, Ruby and Rails are all the rage among all the “cool kids” at the moment. The people out there who are using and evangelizing Rails are the same people who continue to amaze me every day with their remarkable new products. So, if I’m about to begin a new web project, why wouldn’t I go with the same technologies used by the likes of (among many others) Odeo, 43things, Blinksale, Fluxiom, and, yes, Jason, David, and Co. (Not to mention that Ruby itself is beloved by folks like Martin Fowler.) At the same time, I can’t remember the last time I was truly wowed by a web site produced with ASP.NET (with the very notable exception of Campaign Monitor, quite possibly my favorite web app ever… but anyway…)

But, really? Why switch to Rails from C# and .NET, a language and platform I already know so well? Yes, Ruby/Rails helps you be more productive. Yes, it forces you to use proven design patterns like MVC and that kinda junk. Yes, it’s got testing baked right in. Yes, it does the database lifting for you, allowing you to concentrate on other aspects of your site, like a nice presentation. Yes, it makes your source code beautiful and programming a joy and all that garbage. Big deal. Whatever.

Ok, that last part was a trick. If you’re the type of person who really, truly, believes the stuff I just mentioned is important, then just drop what you’re doing (probably writing some stored procedures) and try Rails. You see, the cool kids are cool for a reason. Great products and companies are about people – and the philosophy and culture of creating great software. The technology itself plays just a supporting role. So, yes, as evidenced by Campaign Monitor, you could build a great product using that other technology. But it’s hard. Conversely, if you’re the type of person who buys into all this, you know, agile stuff, you’ll find that doing the same stuff in Rails is quite easy. Rails is opinionated… but if you’re the type of person who believes in those opinions and have great ideas, you’ve a got a pretty strong chance of being one of the cool kids, too.