Change is in the air…

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path — Psalms 119:105

MonoRail, still my preference for .NET

Well during my recent 2 month blogging hiatus I’ve gotten settled into my first project at the new consulting firm I recently joined, and have had quite a few other things going on. 

This first project is interesting because, believe it or not, it’s really my first e-commerce project, which I’m really liking.  The fact that I’m getting to use MonoRail and Windsor for most it is just icing on the cake.  This is my 3rd “professional” project using MonoRail and I have to say it is a joy.  I can’t even imagine going back to “classic” web forms in ASP.NET. 

But… this post is not really about .NET.

A change in direction 

In fact, something else much more interesting has got my attention these days.  Like other ‘softies, I’m really starting to get infected with the Ruby bug (and of course Rails).  I’m trying to look past all the hype, and let RoR speak for itself.  So far, I have to say, it is quite impressive.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading and watching presentations/screencasts all dealing with Ruby and the Rails framework.  A few of which are:

• Ruby on Rails Screencast 1 – DHH
  • Ruby on Rails – Putting Flickr on Rails
    • Chad Fowler presenting at RoR eXchange, Skills Matter
      • The keynotes from last year’s RailsConf 2006
        • Along with many, many others…</ul> One of my main principles when coding is readability and expressiveness, along with DRY, SRP and a handful of others.  In C#, you can certainly write code that is somewhat elegant (more on that later), but it never seems as easy as it should be.  Needless to say, I really like what I’ve seen of Ruby so far.  And coupled with the Rails framework, it looks like a very promising way to produce quick AND clean web applications.

        I’ve just purchased Agile Web Development with Rails (PDF Version), and am currently going through it.  I’m going to try and post some chapter by chapter reviews of it here on my blog as well as my experiences in general as I go through the learning process. 

        So what does this mean for joeyDotNet?

        Well, perhaps it was silly of me to tie my identity so closely to a particular technology, but since I am still mainly doing .NET in my “day job”, I’ll keep it for now.  But if things progress how I expect, I may need “a fresh cup” at some point.