Comments on: Will the Rails war cross the Atlantic? http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/01/02/will-the-rails-war-cross-the-atlantic/ Tracking the UK's mobile and web start-up ecosystem. Sun, 12 Oct 2008 10:09:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Andrzej http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/01/02/will-the-rails-war-cross-the-atlantic/#comment-92815 Andrzej Thu, 03 Jan 2008 22:58:34 +0000 http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/01/02/will-the-rails-war-cross-the-atlantic/#comment-92815 I absolutely love this rant. Zed's pretty offensive against some people - but the general thoughts behind his post are 100% right. RoR community, "Lean methodology" consulting firms, and the whole "go Agile or die" evangelizing is just one big shit-hole :-) I absolutely love this rant. Zed’s pretty offensive against some people - but the general thoughts behind his post are 100% right. RoR community, “Lean methodology” consulting firms, and the whole “go Agile or die” evangelizing is just one big shit-hole :-)

]]> By: RoR Build a boat by starting with a train : PeerPlink Technology Blog http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/01/02/will-the-rails-war-cross-the-atlantic/#comment-92612 RoR Build a boat by starting with a train : PeerPlink Technology Blog Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:31:07 +0000 http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/01/02/will-the-rails-war-cross-the-atlantic/#comment-92612 [...] Thanks for visiting!RoR (Ruby on Rails) still appears to have some cachet in some circles, but as TechCrunch UK report one of it’s loudest proponents is getting disgruntled. Zed Shaw, considered a God in [...] [...] Thanks for visiting!RoR (Ruby on Rails) still appears to have some cachet in some circles, but as TechCrunch UK report one of it’s loudest proponents is getting disgruntled. Zed Shaw, considered a God in [...]

]]> By: Bob Aman http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/01/02/will-the-rails-war-cross-the-atlantic/#comment-92574 Bob Aman Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:37:08 +0000 http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/01/02/will-the-rails-war-cross-the-atlantic/#comment-92574 It's not so much the bad programmers poisoning the community as it is the people who try to cheat you on a regular basis. Personally, I don't like Rails a whole lot on a purely technical level (it's got a ton of flaws that are effectively unfixable), but as a freelance Ruby developer, Rails is what people know, Rails is what gets me paid, so Rails is what I tend to work with professionally. It is amazing how often I get emails from people who try to hire me in an unprofessional manner. As a general rule of thumb, I turn them down, because experience tells me that such people tend not to pay on time, or at all. Now, admittedly, all of my freelancing has been done within the Ruby community, so it's difficult to compare, but it strikes me as really bad to have around 75% of the work offers I get coming from these "bad apples." Just to be clear, there's a lot of companies out there who seem to be having trouble with paying invoices due to mistakes and miscommunication in the accounting department; that's not what I'm talking about. By far my biggest complaint is with companies that have no funding or revenue and cannot actually afford my services. Far too many of them are hiring me (or trying to hire me) without mentioning the fact that if they can't find funding within the next 6 weeks, they won't be able to pay my invoice when it comes due (NET-30 + 2 weeks). That is so not cool, because in the worst case, it means I have 3 outstanding invoices that may never get paid, since they went out before the bad client was identified as such. Others are willing to pay for a week or two of service, and then they insist you become a full time employee, because they can only afford to pay you in worthless equity. And I'm not even charging the insane $120/hr rates many Rails consultants are asking for. I'm really good at what I do, I'm worth my rate, and if I've done work for you, pay me what you owe me. Anything else is criminal. It’s not so much the bad programmers poisoning the community as it is the people who try to cheat you on a regular basis. Personally, I don’t like Rails a whole lot on a purely technical level (it’s got a ton of flaws that are effectively unfixable), but as a freelance Ruby developer, Rails is what people know, Rails is what gets me paid, so Rails is what I tend to work with professionally. It is amazing how often I get emails from people who try to hire me in an unprofessional manner. As a general rule of thumb, I turn them down, because experience tells me that such people tend not to pay on time, or at all. Now, admittedly, all of my freelancing has been done within the Ruby community, so it’s difficult to compare, but it strikes me as really bad to have around 75% of the work offers I get coming from these “bad apples.” Just to be clear, there’s a lot of companies out there who seem to be having trouble with paying invoices due to mistakes and miscommunication in the accounting department; that’s not what I’m talking about.

By far my biggest complaint is with companies that have no funding or revenue and cannot actually afford my services. Far too many of them are hiring me (or trying to hire me) without mentioning the fact that if they can’t find funding within the next 6 weeks, they won’t be able to pay my invoice when it comes due (NET-30 + 2 weeks). That is so not cool, because in the worst case, it means I have 3 outstanding invoices that may never get paid, since they went out before the bad client was identified as such. Others are willing to pay for a week or two of service, and then they insist you become a full time employee, because they can only afford to pay you in worthless equity. And I’m not even charging the insane $120/hr rates many Rails consultants are asking for.

I’m really good at what I do, I’m worth my rate, and if I’ve done work for you, pay me what you owe me. Anything else is criminal.

]]> By: Jonathan Clarke http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/01/02/will-the-rails-war-cross-the-atlantic/#comment-92461 Jonathan Clarke Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:28:24 +0000 http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/01/02/will-the-rails-war-cross-the-atlantic/#comment-92461 Nothing to see here, kindly move along. Zed is a very "loud" individual and as such his arguments must be taken with a pinch of salt. There are always going to be bad developers coming into any language, its been happening to other languages for a long time; I guess that is the price to pay for rails success. I also agree that there is certainly a serious lack of certification for rails engineers as opposed to Java but that will all come in time. It's interesting to note how little of an effect this shall have on the rails community. Zed has written a magnificent piece of software, which I am certainly grateful for, but the rails community is bigger than just one man/woman. Nothing to see here, kindly move along. Zed is a very “loud” individual and as such his arguments must be taken with a pinch of salt. There are always going to be bad developers coming into any language, its been happening to other languages for a long time; I guess that is the price to pay for rails success. I also agree that there is certainly a serious lack of certification for rails engineers as opposed to Java but that will all come in time.

It’s interesting to note how little of an effect this shall have on the rails community. Zed has written a magnificent piece of software, which I am certainly grateful for, but the rails community is bigger than just one man/woman.

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