Ask HN: Why is there no really successful Ruby on Rails CMS solution

Re:Ask HN: Why is there no really successful Ruby on Rails C... by ezekg on Monday October 23, 2017 @10:31AM (#15533400)

Because the Rails community seems to prefer small, single-purpose gems over frameworks/multi-purpose gems. There are not a lot of plug-n-play gems aside from Spree for e-commerce. And besides, Rails makes it super easy to spin up a custom CMS, so using a gem is pretty overkill. For example, to build a blog, all you need is a few models (users, posts, maybe comments), CRUD controllers, admin auth with Devise, Shrine/Paperclip/Carrierwave for image uploads and you're done. And all of that can be spun up rather quickly.

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Re:Ask HN: Why is there no really successful Ruby on Rails C... by etewiah on Monday October 23, 2017 @10:40AM (#15533479)

Yes, I think a lot of people in the Rails community do think using a gem for CMS functionality is overkill. I strongly disagree with that opinion though but before trying to make the counter argument I would like to understand your point of view better. Have you written a real world app that require WordPress like CMS functionality that you were able to code in less than 40 hours?

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Re:Ask HN: Why is there no really successful Ruby on Rails C... by bigmanwalter on Monday October 23, 2017 @02:17PM (#15535514)

I don't use Rails, but a similar framework in Python. My clients love my CMS. The reason being that I can tailor an admin backend to their specific needs. Every single button in my backend has a purpose, and all the more complex settings are hidden behind code.

In a WordPress site, you practically need to be a WordPress dev just to do basic modifications.

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Re:Ask HN: Why is there no really successful Ruby on Rails C... by whatthecrep on Monday October 23, 2017 @04:21PM (#15536620)

Out of curiosity what framework do you use in Python?

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Re:Ask HN: Why is there no really successful Ruby on Rails C... by bigmanwalter on Monday October 23, 2017 @10:45PM (#15538824)

I use web2py. I find it strikes a great balance between having an elegant API and getting shit done. And it generates Bootstrap compatible forms out of the box :)

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Re:Ask HN: Why is there no really successful Ruby on Rails C... by whatthecrep on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @11:14AM (#15542164)

Thanks, I'll definitely take a look at it. How does it compare to Django and Flask?

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Re:Ask HN: Why is there no really successful Ruby on Rails C... by bigmanwalter on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @12:28PM (#15542837)

I found that Django makes too many assumptions for my taste, and you really need to fight it if you don't like them. You can get around the bad design decisions by using plugins, but they're not all compatible with each other and I found it got messy.

Flask on the other hand, comes with too few features out of the box. Getting an application with user auth, file uploads, an ORM and form generation can take over a week to set up perfectly.

Web2py was created by a professor at DePaul University who got tired of Django after teaching it in a web development course. He built Web2py to have feature parity, but, IMHO, he has a much better aesthetic when it comes to API design.

So rather than a design-by-comittee behemoth like Django, you get a succinct and intuitive API designed by a great programmer.

Beyond that, it has a handful of features that I find unmatched, notably its data grids and bootstrap compatibility by default.

I really love the bootstrap compatibility because it allows me to grab a theme off wrapbootstrap.com and everything just works without any tweaking. For small projects it works out perfectly :)

It also has a very active Google Group where the framework's author frequently helps people out!

The only thing I miss is the Werkzeug debugger that Flask comes with by default, and which can bet set up to run on Django. That thing is beautiful. But Web2py's debugger is good enough, and Web2py surpasses the competition in every other way.

To really grok how amazing web2py is, I recommend working through the tutorial. It's not too long and it shows off Web2py quite nicely. A lot of what makes web2py so great are subtle design decisions. It fixes almost all the problems I had with the other frameworks and introduces practically none of its own.

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Re:Ask HN: Why is there no really successful Ruby on Rails C... by whatthecrep on Wednesday October 25, 2017 @02:57PM (#15553066)

Thank for the answer

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Re:Ask HN: Why is there no really successful Ruby on Rails C... by ezekg on Monday October 23, 2017 @11:01AM (#15533658)

What exactly do you mean by WP-esque functionality, though? If by blog platform, then yes, that's easily done with Rails. And quick too. E-commerce? That's going to take more than 40 hours. WP is notoriously bloated and multi-purpose (not in the good way--in the square peg, round hole way). Really, the only WP functionality that would be tough to replicate in Rails is the WP theme/plugin ecosystem, but that's not really Rails' style--and if you need that, why not just use WP?

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Re:Ask HN: Why is there no really successful Ruby on Rails C... by sn1de on Monday October 23, 2017 @12:07PM (#15534208)

But what can't be thrown together are truly great content authoring capabilities that support mobile responsive. Those are sophisticated UI heavy features that are hard to do well.

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Re:Ask HN: Why is there no really successful Ruby on Rails C... by bigmanwalter on Monday October 23, 2017 @02:18PM (#15535520)

That can't really be done well in WordPress either.

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