Would you use PHP or RoR?
 

Would you use PHP or Ruby on Rails for a new content rich custom site that you would host on your own server?

If you would use PHP what framework would you use?

I'm thinking about dropping PHP and do all new stuff in RoR!

Isnt Ruby on Rails a FCGI module? From what I saw on their site it is.
Dont really know about RoR but I would use PHP as RoR seems to be a simple a simple Parser module for your webserver while PHP is now fully support objects / classes

On second thought, isnt RoR much like the Smarty Template engine for PHP?

Ruby on Rails is a web framework developed in the Ruby programming language. Fully OO from the ground up. Very readable and elegant language. Its OO features leave PHP in the dust.

Ruby on Rails is amazing.. but its drawback is, it can be sticky when it comes to deployment/server configurations. Most end up havnt to set up apache as a transparent proxy for rails apps running on mongrel or lighttpd, as far as I know.

Even though I love RoR, I decided on Django for some projects I am working on. I like its loosly coupled approach.. each little app you build for a django project is nice, self contained and can easily be shared between other django apps. You dont have to start mucking around with building "plugins" or generators like you do in RoR. Django is basically a Rails-esque framework, written in python.

Not at all. Rails is a collection of Ruby frameworks, put together in a nice coherent peice. Look at the php frameworks in the poll and you can get a better idea of what RoR is.

RoR has a template engine built in yes, but its much more than that.

It has other components as well, such as ActiveRecord ORM (Object Relational Mapper). You dont have to write a bit of SQL to write a database driven app, or even to design the schema. Because of its ability to introspect its objects, it can automatically generate web forms from your database tables. It can automatically validate data as its entered and all kinds of other cool stuff like that.

Migrations are another great feature. You define your db schema in ruby code. As you make changes to your schema, it saves the iterations, so with one command you can rollback to previous versions, or even use your app on top of another DB. It can take care of inserting or removing initial data into your app.

It also has an amazing testing suite built in, that makes it dead simple to run tests on your application.

I really like what I have seen so far of RoR

I really don't miss having to write all the form handlers and sql code in old PHP!

Scaffolding is also a very quick way to make an admin area.

Once you stretch your application beyond what RoR offers, you're back to square one, writing your own custom Rails shit from scratch. The same goes for any framework.

I don't see any need to go changing everything you do just so you can jump on some framework bandwagon. Use whatever is appropriate for your needs (including what needs you expect in the future)

And herein lies the trend - RoR is new, it's great and it's quick as fuck to write a web app from the ground up, but take anything to the next level and you and up back to the same sluggish trudge.

I'll stick with PHP w/ Zend for the time being, because that is what is compatible with most of my clients' configs...

and forget php w/ cake - I tried that and it's buggy as hell. It was 3 months ago, but after 2 days I jacked it in

or was that trax? I forget

I have to agree with you. Django is my preferred framework as well. I just wish more hosts were supporting it.

Thanks for the Django tip... I hadn't considered it since its not so much hyped up at the moment.

Will check that out for sure!

I would use php and my own framework, optimized for the application rather than some bloated library

PHP, and either a suitable framework (Smarty's OK for templating, but damn slow and bloated for specific needs), or my own little hack.

My reasonings are simple: PHP is easy to deploy virtually anywhere, RoR is still an infant, and requires proxying through Apache (lighttpd or otherwise), and although robust, just doesn't have the featureset that I generally want, or use.

RoR is prettier, but sometimes it's better to spend less time on making it beautiful, and make it WORK so you can make money, instead. :thumbsup