Grails or Rails? [closed]

Question

I know that there have been plenty of topics describing this topic but I still can't put up my mind what to choose.First of all, I need you to know that I am a student in his last year, who will probably continue studying for a few years. However, I'm trying to find what I would benefit most from.

I've been in contact with RoR last year; seeing Ruby's squirky syntax amazed me, and Rails CoC and DRY principles make me dream. I've written some scripts to generate sql statements in Ruby, but that is about all.

I'm considered to be a java developer, as they call me the java guy on school, (no, i do not consider myself good, on the contrary, every day I realise more how much more i've got to learn). Now, I've taught myself several technologies related to java. To make my work easier, I opted learning hibernate and maven. Now we are developping an application in Spring + Spring MVC.

Grails caught my attention lately since it is built on top of these technologies, and uses a language that is similar to java, and allows access to java classes.

However, i'm not sure what is the best way to go. Should I struggle through Ruby's quirkyness first, and learn Rails? Or would learning Grails first give me an advantage over learning RoR?

Also, as far as from what i've read, RoR would give me a bigger advantage on the market than grails would; but how do I get a "proof" that I can use RoR? Would it be enough to be able to show applications made using RoR?

Answer 1

I've used both frameworks pretty extensively, and both have their warts and advantages, but when you come right down to it, there aren't that many differences for someone coming from your background.

In my area (Minneapolis), the grails market is larger than the rails market, but that isn't the case everywhere.

I'd pick whichever one has the user group in your area that you connect with the most. That will be your best bet for finding work with whichever one you choose.

Answer 2

You've mentioned that you're already into Java, Spring and Hibernate. Well, Grails is based on those - in continuation.

Spring is a very comprehensive, powerful, and modular, framework. Hibernate has been a de-facto standard, and is compliant with Java EE 6's JPA. Both are most relevant in the Java world.

So, there's the aspect of consistency of your technical knowledge. From Spring/Hibernate to Grails/GORM you'll have cohesive knowledge.

Another central aspect is your options. When dealing with Spring, you'll probably soon learn how easy it is to change complete architectural layers, like, changing the view technology, or database layer, or simply exporting a web service by configuration. Spring-based applications can be highly modular, and you can plug-in almost any technology scope you could think of. - So you have many ways to go further if desired.

The Spring framework has been written from the ground to foster best practices. Just dealing with that framework will teach you a lot.

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Admittedly, I haven't dealt with Ruby on Rails, at all. I regard it a rather isolated technology, while Grails is a (Java and Spring) integration framework to me, with the backends/grounds and options as mentioned above.

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When evaluating practical aspects of technologies, it's always a good idea to do some research on Google Trends and Indeed job trends. Other indicators on popularity/relevance are the numbers (and trends) of mailing list messages for Grails vs. Ruby on Rails, and (not quite an accurate measurement for niche languages) the TIOBE programming languages index.

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Finally, Java had experienced several years of starvation and uncertainty in the past (despite of being one of the few all-time languages and frameworks, at all, and a long-burner). Recently, however, several evident signs came up that appear to seriously forecast a much brighter future than before.