What should I choose Ruby on Rails or PHP ?

Hi Ahsan, Few months back, I am in the same situation with you, at the crossroad of choosing whether to do PHP or Ruby on Rails. So just wanna share my experience and hope it will help you. I chose Ruby on Rails and find that I am completely lost in the "Build a Simple Ruby on Rails Applications". Note that I have a little knowledge in programming in Python from Coursera and Udacity before hand. It is frustrating because I do not understand the MVC design patterns that Rails is using and in the end, it is just following the video and typing the code without understanding. I also do not understand the weird syntax Ruby is using. Therefore, I gave up and switch to PHP instead.

For PHP, the pace is much slower and you will be able to fully appreciate what server-side programming can achieve. Also, through the PHP lessons, I learnt about the concepts of MVC, refactoring, querying databases, etc. I further move on to develop a simple site using PHP and WordPress, where I get to practice what I have learned. At this point, I started to think back my first Rails project, about how everything is magically formed. So I went back to take the first Rails project all over again. This time round, the concepts became much clearer. I am able to follow along and understand what is going on in the video, and I went on to create my own simple Rails application, and is currently doing my second pet project. I suppose that I will be mainly using Rails for all my projects except for WordPress projects until I find something that I like more.

What I want to share is that Rails is a framework that is used to accelerate the process of web development. If your objective is speed, then you should just take the Rails project. However, assuming that you are new, it is likely that you will encounter a lot of frustrations. PHP on the other hand, to me is much easier to learn the basics of server-side programming. The skills that you have acquired in programming in PHP will only help to enhance what you will be learning in Rails. Unfortunately, I do not know of a path that is both easier, and faster to achieve that you want. For me, I think PHP is easier, and Ruby on Rails is faster.

Thanks for sharing Thiam. Was thinking of asking the same question but you've given me a clearer path.

thanks Thiam, you helped me alot

Thiam Hock Ng Thank you you so much for that great insight, I was really confused in that regards, as even though I am able to follow along the ruby on rails course but as of now I am not able to make much comprehension about it, as all I am doing is replicating the steps without knowing the underlying concepts of things such as scaffolding and so many others. Regards

Thank you Thiam. You cleared my confusion as well.

Thank this help.

I really like the simplicity of Ruby on Rails, I do believe that this language is also far more beginner friendly. Ruby on rails seems very easy to understand so at this moment I am finishing the PHP course and see if Ruby is something for me!