If I were developing a public-facing Web application, and I was not able to use OutSystems Agile Platform (my Web application system of choice), I would consider Ruby on Rails (RoR). From everything I’ve seen and read (which is a lot!), RoR is the best system available. Other applications have their own advantages, but I think RoR hits the mark across the board.
However, for an internal-facing enterprise application, I still think .NET or Java (depending mostly on your company’s use of Windows servers and Active Directory) is the way to go. RoR lacks so many of the enterprise stack items and enterprise feature list “must haves” like integration with Active Directory. In addition, I don’t think enterprise IT teams work well with dynamic languages like Ruby. There was a reason why Perl evaporated in the enterprise Web development market as soon as Java and ASP.NET were up to snuff.
J.Ja
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