As I said I would do some time ago, I started to use Ruby to develop some of my Web applications, with Rails as the framework. I confess I’m more and more in love both with the language and the framework. Like Python, they don’t get in the way of programmers, which results in much more productivity and enjoyment. It’s a pity Ruby hackers like so much underscores in their method names. I could easily do without them.

Anyway, for Web applications, Rails is the best framework I’ve ever used. Things are always simple and intuitive, and I rarely need to resort to the documentation to understand how something is done. I had an epiphany when I saw how easily I could add authentication to an application that was already working.

Now it’s my friends who must bear with me as I preach to them the virtues of Ruby and Rails in our instant messaging sessions. But, seeing how Rails reduces the time needed to code a Web application, I can’t help myself. A friend of mine, for example, was complaining to me about how long it takes — and how tedious it is — to create simple forms in PHP, with the same boring authentication and validation rules. In Rails, this task can be accomplished with a single method invocation and a couple rules in another method. The framework takes care of the rest.

Is there anything simpler than that?