Quick ‘n easy

I was kvetching with some former coworkers of mine about how testing Struts 2 Actions can‘t be properly done (that is, not until the next version comes out with the JUnit plugin), and the coworker who‘s a Rails fan made the remark that testing with Rails is so “quick and easy.”

I like quick and easy. I’m single and live alone. Most of what I eat either comes out of a can or from the freezer frozen in a box or bag. I live on quick and easy.

But imagine that you were eating in some fancy restaurant and the pastry chef came out and you were talking. If the pastry chef started extolling the virtues of Duncan Hines cake mixes and how quick and easy they are to use, most people would be puzzled and wondering “what kind of pastry chef is that?”

That’s the problem I have with Rails and professional programmers who sing its praises. Rails is to web programming what Duncan Hines is to baking. Quick and easy. I don’t have a problem when someone who’s a casual or amateur programmer appreciates how quick and easy it is to put up a web site with Rails. But I think there’s something wrong when professional programmers see Rails as “quick and easy,” and the standard by which they judge all other frameworks.