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Finally managed to get my hands on RubyOnRails, thanks to his links helped me the right direction in getting the right tutorials and set of blogs for a kickstart. 24 hrs and now I can call myself ” I am aware of RubyOnRails”! Although I’ve got to start learning the language first.

In the last 24 hours I managed to sniff thru the following (in the same order). Hope this should help u too…
Rails MVC
absolute beginners guide -
part two of above
the very basics of Ruby Language
open source projects in ruby
guide to your first sample project in ruby
Choose a single layer of Cleverness – Rails design strategy

Some interesting blogs on Rails (anti Ruby)
Awesome Rails rant n bithcin (must read 5*)
Rails Bitching
Ruby sucks in performance when compared to Java
More about Ruby performance

Right now Im hooked on understanding Ruby more as a language, this is cool stuff never knew I would begin to scrutinise Java or other languages so closely now . If all you need is a simple – intermediate web application without the corporate trying to bull crap you with their pseudo marketing of proprietary n-tier stacked frameworks solving all 101 problems (when all you have is a basic set of 10-15 business problems), RoR is a big break. Thankfully, RoR is taking the right path for what a framework should do with ABSTRACTION being the key point. Something only an open source has the guts to do.

Having said that I think Rails needs a big boost in the UI rendering coz from whatever I’ve seen its basic stuff with Ajax rolled in. Web has never been able to replace thick clients due to lack of sophisticated Front end component models. Take a look at this and you will know what I’m talking about! Talk about performance and scalability? Hmmm there is an interesting debate on the web reg this (no wonder relegious Java geeks will do anything to bash a new kid on the block ). There is an increasing debate on anti RoR on the web by serious Architects too, well negative or positive this piece of meat is in the centre of attention so much that it has made it to the front page of Dr Dobb’s Journal, June edition with the title
” RubyOnRails … Java’s successor?”

What I wish RoR was instead; -
- I hate to learn new languages! Seriously its a big pain in the arse! Do you want to learn 10 spoken languages with less than 1000 vocabulary strength in each or do you want to learn one language with 10000 vocabulary list? Think again. This is a powerful concept Im talking about. Imagine Ruby and RoR built on top of JVM and uses Java language. With an interpreter Engine, life becomes so easy! Why do you want to compete with a giant when you can use them collaboratively? I think Ruby (if at all) will fail to accelerate it’s fanbase due to the newLanguageNewEnvironment syndrome. It’s like replacing windows OS! You cant do that in a single day or a year.

This is already done by Groovy . It’s the classic concept of using a Language specification, writing a grammar and interpreter/compiler. In this case I think we can combine javacc for a parser generator. I used javacc before and its incredibly powerful. We need a RLS – Ruby Language Specification on top of Java! I would like to see something embracing Java, the VM and the two most popular frameworks – Hibernate and Spring all working together in cauldron in a much simpler abstraction!

Perhaps something that mimics RoR but in terms of what you know already – Java, maybe much simpler!

What next?
It seems RoR is thinking of building it’s own Virtual Machine. Jeez where do people get the time!