Frameworks have it wrong?

I'm beginning to think that programming frameworks like Rails and Struts have it all wrong. It started with looking at how they do Ajax/JavaScript. Agile and Getting Real says to create the interface first. Frameworks are not about interface. Still thinking.

Hobo on Rails

If you do Rails, then have a look at Hobo at HoboCentral.net. Great screencasts that show you how this framework makes it easy to get a Rails app up very quicky. Particularly impressive is the three screencast where they import a theme and it is all working within a few minutes. Very DRY and very design driven.

Quick and Clean - Well Factored Ruby by Chad Fowler

Chad Fowler gave a very good talk at the NovaRug Users' Group (2/21/07) about well factored Ruby on Rails code that he called Quick and Clean. These are some notes and links to references.

The talks was inspired by Joel Spolsky's article on The Law of Leaky Abstraction. Chad argues that you have to know what is going on "under rails" to write great code. So learn more Ruby! Chad was also inspired by Martin Fowler's keynote at 2006 Rail Conf. In the keynote he states that Rails continues the tradition of smalltalk where quick can be clean and it does not have to be dirty.

Chad organized his presentation into some opinionated suggestions and presented sample code to make his point:

• Controller only does CRUD methods
• No SQL in Controllers
• Limit Controllers to four lines
• Avoid duplication
• No code in your Views - make helpers to clean up
• Master Ruby

Discussion was promoted by his conjecture that we may have be reaching the limit of MVC (Model-View-Controller). He referenced the Amrita as software worth exploring.

So a good meeting with links to even more.