Why is Ruby on Rails more popular than Django?

[Russell E. Owen]

In article 
<3d9fe0b2-7931-4ab6-8929-235460729c64 at q9g2000pbf.googlegroups.com>,
 rusi <rustompmody at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mar 6, 11:03 pm, Jason Hsu <jhsu802... at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm currently in the process of learning Ruby on Rails.  I'm going through 
> > the Rails for Zombies tutorial, and I'm seeing the power of Rails.
> >
> > I still need to get a Ruby on Rails site up and running for the world to 
> > see.  (My first serious RoR site will profile mutual funds from a value 
> > investor's point of view.)
> >
> > I have an existing web site and project called Doppler Value Investing 
> > (dopplervalueinvesting.com) that uses Drupal to display the web pages and 
> > Python web-scraping scripts to create *.csv and *.html files showing 
> > information on individual stocks.  My site has a tacked-on feel to it, and 
> > I definitely want to change the setup.
> >
> > At a future time, I will rebuild my Doppler Value Investing web site in 
> > either Ruby on Rails or Django.  The Ruby on Rails route will require 
> > rewriting my Python script in Ruby.  The Django route will require learning 
> > Django.  (I'm not sure which one will be easier.)
> >
> > My questions:
> > 1.  Why is Ruby on Rails much more popular than Django?
> 
> "Where there is choice there is no freedom"
> http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/1954/1954-03-03-jiddu-krishnamurti-8th-pu
> blic-talk
> 
> Python-for-web offered so much choice -- zope, django, turbogears,
> cherrypy, web.py etc etc -- that the newbie was completely drowned.
> With Ruby there is only one choice to make -- choose Ruby and rails
> follows.
> 
> Anyone who's used emacs will know this as the bane of FLOSS software
> -- 100 ways of doing something and none perfect -- IOW too much
> spurious choice.
> 
> GvR understood and rigorously implemented a dictum that Nicklaus Wirth
> formulated decades ago -- "The most important thing about language
> design is what to leave out." Therefore Python is a beautiful
> language.  Unfortunately the same leadership did not carry over to web
> frameworks and so we have a mess.
> 
> I guess the situation is being corrected with google putting its
> artillery behind django.

I strongly agree. The fact that there is no de-facto standard web system 
for Python is a major problem. Consider:
- With too many choice one has no idea which projects will be maintained 
and which will be abandoned.
- Expert knowledge among users is spread more thinly.
- The effort of contributors is diluted.

Years ago when I had some simple web programming to do I looked at the 
choices, gave up and used PHP (which I hated, but got the job done). If 
RoR had been available I would have been much happier using that.

In my opinion the plethora of Python web frameworks is a serious 
detriment to trust and wider acceptance of Python for this use. If  
Django is becoming this standard, that is excellent news.

Some choice is good, but in my opinion too much choice and lack of a 
de-facto standard are very detrimental.

-- Russell