keeran.com

I was going to post this on GRTD but I figured this is more of a general topic. It seems the blogosphere is in the process of jumping on another productivity enhancing bandwagon, going by the name of “Flow”.

I hadn’t heard of this before…maybe I’m in the process of hitching a ride on that bandwagon, but I found out about it at this blog (which is now added to my daily reading) and the author’s comment in it’s relation to Ruby On Rails has hit the nail right on the head:

The point here is people are doing Ruby on Rails not because it comes within some whiz-bang IDE (it doesn’t) or it has a bunch of wizards and graphical builder dohickeys (it doesn’t) or even because it promises productivity boosts (they’re there, but as a result). Rather, they’re excited because with only a text editor and a copy of Pickaxe by your side, you can do some amazing things and get into that state. And that makes you happy. And that makes you productive, because you actually want to do the work.

I have been trying to get others fired up about Rails for months now. People would ask me ‘does it do x?’ ‘can i achieve y?’ etc and more often than not, I could come up with the answer or provide some kind of insight as to why doing x or achieving y might not be the best solution in the first place. What I couldn’t put my finger on is why *I* enjoy coding with Ruby/Rails so much and I think the above quote and it’s parent post sums it up perfectly.