This time around, I'm interviewing Christian Hellsten, the co-author of Beginning Ruby on Rails E-Commerce
Christian, would you please introduce yourself?
Christian: I'm a father of two, a software consultant, and as of lately founder and CEO of Aktagon.
Why do you do outside of Ruby on Rails devleopment? Any hobbies?
Christian: I have two kids, which I spend most of my spare time with, so there's not much time left over for my own hobbies. When I have the opportunity, I travel, read books, roller blade, ski, swim, go mountain biking or perform some other sport.
Can you tell us a little bit more about Aktagon?
Christian: Aktagon is a tiny IT consultancy based in Finland that I founded in 2006 . We, including me, myself and I, develop software and sell consulting services.
How much Ruby/RoR work are you doing? What advantages do you find that Ruby/RoR gives you?
Christian: Right now I'm doing J2EE development for a client, which takes most of my time. This month, I've done about 60% J2EE, 30% Rails and 10% Python. Rails contracts are pretty non-existent here in Finland, so I'm not doing as much Rails work as I would like.
The main advantage of using Ruby/RoR (for a typical web application, not all) is that I can complete the project in less time, and maintain it with less effort. With Ruby/RoR, I don't have to spend time on tasks such as recompile, restart or redeploy. And, when the application is ready, I can easily deploy the application to production with Capistrano. Also, I don't have to integrate a gazillion different libraries. Most things are available in Ruby/RoR, out of the box, or through plugins.
What role do Ruby and RoR play in your day to day work?
Christian: Before Ruby on Rails was released, Python and to some degree Java were my favorite programming languages. I had heard about Ruby and tried it a couple of times. But I preferred Python over Ruby, because it had more libraries and seemed to be better documented. After trying Rails, both Ruby and Ruby on Rails immediately became my favorites.
Did you find that Ruby had more libraries than you thought, or were there other factors that made it better the second time around?
Christian: All I needed to make the switch was a killer application like Rails. After making the switch, I found out that Ruby had almost all the libraries I needed. Early on, a decent search engine didn't exist, but Ferret has now solved this issue.
What do you still miss from your Python and Java days?
Christian: I'm still doing both Python and Java development, but I can't say that I miss anything from either environment when I'm programming in Ruby.
Compared to Java, Ruby is a lot more productive and fun. Ruby is identical to Python, but I like the Ruby syntax more.
There are things that aren't available in Ruby, but most of the time you don't need them, or can work around them.
What do you think Rails should/needs to learn/steal from other frameworks (like Nitro or IOWA in the Ruby world, or the non-Ruby based ones)?
Christian: Difficult question. I haven't used Nitro or IOWA. There are a lot of things that could be copied from other frameworks/languages, such as continuations (Seaside), JMX (J2EE), automatic admin interfaces for models (Django) -- to name a few. But, I don't think those features would benefit most projects -- they would only add more complexity.
Since I don't have any answer, I can only say that it would make sense to copy things that make development for ~80-90% of the web applications out there easier.
How did you come to write a book about Ruby?
Christian: I was asked by Apress if I would be interested in writing a book about Ruby on Rails and e-commerce. The thought of writing a book about Rails had crossed my mind before, so I jumped at the chance.
Now that you know more about what writing a book takes, would you jump again?
Christian: I would definitely do it again, if I had the opportunity. But, right now I would hesitate a bit, because it requires so much time and effort.
What sets Beginning Ruby on Rails E-Commerce apart? Why should people buy it?
Christian: The whole book is built around a fictional e-commerce project. We start out by showing you Rails basics and then gradually introduce you to more complex technologies and features. At the end the reader has a complete e-commerce site that we also show how to deploy to production.
The book is not all about Rails features, we also included a lot of third-party tools and plugins, such as Active Merchant, the PayPal plug-in, the Shipping gem, Globalize, Ferret, Capistrano and more.
It's also for those who want to learn Test Driven Development (TDD). The book shows the reader how to do unit, functional, integration and acceptance testing (Selenium on Rails).
It sounds like you're a lot more interested in the process than the language. How does Ruby affect your ability to be able to focus on getting things done?
Christian: True. I'm more interested in getting the job done than in the technology. Ruby allows me to focus on the problem at hand in a completely different way than for example Java. I don't have to recompile anything or wait for my application to redeploy, which can take 20-30 minutes with a moderately sized J2EE application.
Ruby is also a lot more powerful than Java, which has all kinds of constraints that make you less productive. The thing I like the most about Ruby is that you can easily change almost anything at runtime - for example, add methods and classes.
If someone created something even more productive than Ruby and Rails tomorrow I won't hesitate to switch.
That's an awfully strong statement. Can you give me some examples of Ruby being more powerful than Java in a production setting?
Christian: Note that I'm not saying that Ruby is always going to be more powerful than Java for a given project. With powerful, in this context, I meant that Ruby puts less constraints on the developer. I can, for example, decide to introduce a new method to the String class in Ruby, which in Java wouldn't be possible.
Rails itself, is I guess the best example of this -- ActiveSupport in particular. Rails is also doing a lot of things behind the scenes that would be very complicated, or not possible at all in Java. Rails is creating methods and classes at runtime by using method_missing and const_missing , which have no equivalents in Java.
Another example is Dr Nic's Magic Models, which is doing some pretty amazing things at runtime.
It also leads to a corallary questions, what Ruby/RoR problems do you find that you have to work around?
Christian: Lately, I've had some problems with a couple of Rails bugs that I have had to fix or find patches for.
This is again one of the reasons why I like Ruby so much. If I find a bug in Ruby, Rails or a third-party plugin I can usually fix it by modifying the code at runtime. It also helps a lot that the source is available.
What was the most rewarding part of writing your book?
Christian: I enjoyed working with Jarkko Laine, Peter Marklund and the rest of the project team. After many long nights of writing and coding, I also found it very rewarding to see the book being published.
What was the hardest part about writing it?
Christian: The schedule was very tight, so I would say the lack of time. It was also difficult to keep all chapters in sync with each other, since each chapter builds on what was done in the previous one. Another problem was that Rails evolves so quickly that it's difficult to keep up with all the changes, while writing a book and changing diapers.
What did you learn while writing it?
Christian: I learned a bit about everything, including Ruby, Rails, writing, myself and the book publishing business.
Which other Ruby books do you envy?
Christian: Ruby for Rails
What non-Ruby books do you think Ruby and RoR hackers should be reading?
Christian: Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
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