Ruby Rails vs. PHP?

I know a lot of programmers that specialize in online text-based RPGs and pet games. Most of them use PHP. One, however, uses Ruby Rails.

So, this naturally brings up the question...which is better? Is it all in how one codes? Or is RR faster with databases and slower with other code or vice versa, faster in both respects, slower in both respects, or...? How about ease of use? PHP is probably the most newbie-friendly language of the programming world and provides high functionality for the more advanced programmer. So what's RR's stand or "claim to fame"? Is there a bit higher of a learning curve, but better...err...results from it?

I know jack about RR, a decent amount about PHP...care to enlighten me so I may enlighten my friends?

Thank you

I have only a small amount of experience in either. But my guess is that PHP is faster. However, Ruby is much easy to learn and the syntax is very forgiving. Some of the syntax reminds me of PHP but most of it looks like smalltalk. I have been very impressed with the Ruby so far. But then again I have little experience with it. I would suggest searching for "Ruby on Rails vs PHP" if no one else can give you a comparison here.

What makes you say that PHP is faster? I'd say that conceptually the MVC of RoR would be harder for a new web programmer to grasp. Where as someone whose been working with PHP for a while using output buffering, templating, etc. would make a pretty smooth transition to RoR... well, that was my experience at least.

For me its the framework of the app. I find myself laying out my PHP apps now very much like Rails apps. RoR forces you to put code in the right places. PHP makes it easy to put code where ever you feel fit, and this can haunt you later in the application development process.

I'm by no means bashing PHP. I use PHP 365 days of the year. I'm just hoping to start using RoR more often on future projects.

Yes, even i would say that its good learning new technologies every day but with Ruby on rails even the recommended book (Agile_Web_Development_With_Rails) doesn't cover the complete topics. The very basic File Uploading is told by storing the files into the database.
There are different conventions that need to be followed which a PHP developer wont do anyways.

I was just wondering to run a .php file and that ran into a big problem for me. The file permissions need to be followed for the same.

Also file permission for the Rails application are defined which again is a problem for a new programmer to rails.

The settings are distributed and for a small change to database etc you need to change the .yml file run a rake command and so on...

That creates a whole problem for anyone who is not experienced with Ruby on rails.


But one thing i really enjoyed working on RoR and as they say you will love RUBY