java to rails - been there?

Question

Coming from java/groovy/grails we are currently moving to rails. We have been having an abdolute blast with it. Testing has never been so easy and productive. And as a team we are convinced that we would like to move forward in this language.

We will be tackling some client solutions in pure rails soon.

This is not a what is better question. So please no responses advocating grails/django or whatever other technology.

The real question we would like to pose is an answer to the one nagging doubt that remains. As long time java developers coming from the JDK and the vast libraries you sort of feel that nothing is impossible, and its probably been done before in some framework. It's an empowering feeling that we slipped into over time.

We currently feel super expressive and productive in ruby/rails but we don't quite feel that sense of power yet. A sort of fear of problems to come. I'm not talking about scaling perse, but a fear that a potential client request is (undoable?).

I would really like to heard from any Java to Rails webshops (Or similar transgressions). Are there any pitfalls we might face, problems that we will have to tackle that we didn't use to before? A sort of heads up.

Furthermore, how easy is it to fall back on jruby? We are currently using plain ruby, and haven't explored that path yet.

to summarize, the road ahead looks exiting, and we will be diving into our first pure rails solutions soon. But It's also a little daunting and we're looking for some friendly advice from our predecessors.

note: once again, this is not about framework comparisons!

Answer 1

I can speak to JRuby and that it is easy to setup and use (especially for fall back Java code). Furthermore, it offers great performance and now 1.9.2 compatibility. The only issue you may run into is some of the C wrapper libraries not working. If you are looking to fall back, just be sure that you write extensive tests and you should be fine. If you want to try multiple Ruby interpreters check out RVM.