Robin Blandford [ ByteSurgery.com - Digital Media Engineering ]

11/12/06 Ruby on Rails & Getting Real

It was a good weekend in London. Not only am I now back reading Getting Real by 37 Signals, but I’ve started back on track (no pun intended!) with their Ruby on Rails framework.

“Ruby on Rails is astounding. Using it is like watching a kung-fu movie, where a dozen bad-ass frameworks prepare to beat up the little newcomer only to be handed their asses in a variety of imaginative ways.” -Nathan Torkington (O’Reilly Publishing)

Gotta love that quote. It’s true too!

Here’s something from Getting Real to give you a glimpse:

Underdo your competition

Conventional wisdom says that to beat your competitors you need to one-up them. If they have four features, you need five (or 15, or 25). If they’re spending x, you need to spend xx. If they have 20, you need 30.

This sort of one-upping Cold War mentality is a dead-end. It’s an expensive, defensive, and paranoid way of building products. Defensive, paranoid companies can’t think ahead, they can only think behind. They don’t lead, they follow.

That’s the business mentality I love.

Tags: General, Ruby On Rails

2 Comments

---

14/12/06 Ken McGuire

A good read (the rails one)?

---

15/12/06 Robin Blandford

yes. worth getting the new revision too.

It’s a good intro to rails.

---

Write Comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail

---

---