Why Rails? Part 4: Because It's Free 5
Ok, duh, right? This is pretty much a no-brainer for those starting new businesses, whether you’re jumping in head-first, or doing the side-business thing like so many of us are nowadays. So us (former?) .NET developers have a couple of choices. How about Ruby, Rails, and notepad (or SciTE or RadRails or whatever)? Total cost: free, free, and free. Need a web server? Linux and Apache, or maybe lighttpd. Free, and your choice of free, or free. How about source control? A database? Well, you get the picture.
Alright, at the end of the day, the choice to go open source is still not totally free. Particularly, if you’re an experienced .NET developer, and not so much in the LAMP/open-source department, the biggest cost you’ll incur is your time – getting up to speed on Ruby/Rails, Linux, and how a lot of the infrastructure stuff works. If you have the time, it’s worth it. Because you’ll never pay a dime to get a web project going ever again. And, certainly, you’ll spend more actual money before you even start writing .NET code than you’ll spend finishing your Ruby on Rails product and shipping it. Consider the cost (per developer) just to begin development with the Microsoft stack:
Development environment: $799 (VS.NET 2005 Pro) or $299 (Standard), er, $2799, eh, forget it! Look yourself.
Source control software: $549 (Sourcesafe 2005)
Web server software: Windows Server 2003 + IIS = $1000 and up.
Database: shudder
Of course, for development purposes you have the grand option to use all of this great stuff by purchasing an MSDN Subscription. For your viewing pleasure, I am pleased to present the following: (Note: copied without the express written consent of Microsoft Corporation. Please don’t sue me. I don’t have the money.)
Oh, it should be mentioned… our friends at Microsoft sure do give it the ol’ college try with the Visual Studio Express Editions. As it says right there on the front page, these “lightweight” solutions are primary aimed at the “hobbyist, novice, and student developer”. Er, I don’t think I’m any of those. But ok, they’re free. Uh, “free for one year”?
I think we can all agree that free is sounding pretty good right about now.
RE: Express editions, the quotes you cite are taken a bit out of context.
1) The Express editions are free to use for life if downloaded within the first year of their release.
2) It's this free download period which is a gift to the novice/hobbyist/student/etc, not the 'lite' versions themselves.
(fyi, I'm also an MS refugee ;) )
Aside from that, great article (past and present parts) -- I look forward to more!
EJC, you're right... a little extra jab at MS is always fun though :)
I don't think it is a good arguement for Rails. You are comparing an IDE against a framework.
The .NET Framework and ASP.NET is free. As is C# and its compiler.
You can write an ASP.NET app in Notepad if you so wished.
And to be honest Visual Studio is a brilliant IDE. RadRails is doing good work but it has a long way to go.
BTW I love Rails. I no longer do websites in ASP.NET. But I do think we should be comparing apples with apples here and not apples with boomerangs :)
Paul, fair enough. Also, C# Express editions are now totally free forever.
Still, .NET sure doesn't feel free to me. Seems like any "serious" ASP.NET developer is using Visual Studio. And all the other tools/infrastructure I mentioned, including IIS, which only runs on, of course, Windows. Not cheap.
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