How to Pitch Rails to Your Friends and Enemies
Oct 09, 2006Joe is a software developer. Joe gets paid for a living to build web applications using J2EE. While it pays the bills, he’s been looking into this new framework called Ruby on Rails. Joe is really starting to like Ruby on Rails, to the point where he feels he would be doing his fellow coworkers a disservice if he didn’t inform them of how great it is.
Joe goes into work one day and decides to tell Marcy, one of the tech leads in the company, about how the Ruby language and the Rails framework has rocked his world. He peeks his head in Marcy’s cube and notices she’s debugging some code. Joe doubts it’s important. After informing Marcy of how awesome Rails is and how much J2EE sucks he is quickly brushed off by Marcy and given some legacy Cobol to debug.
Throwing the Pin (Instead of the Grenade)
On average software developers are smarter than your average bear. They usually spend a lot of time learning and expanding their skills. They like things that make their lives easier. So telling software developers about a new web framework that will make their lives easier should be an easy task, right?
Software developers are also just like everyone else in that they don’t like having their career choices insulted by marketers peddling the latest solution to all their problems.
So what should have Joe done instead?
How To Pitch Rails
Focus on the Positives
Rails has so many great positives, so focus on those rather than the negatives of other web frameworks. Tell people how great ActiveRecord is, rather than how much EJB’s suck. Show them how all the Rails helpers produce valid XHTML instead of lamenting how much .NET controls mangle your output. Insulting your audience’s current choice of tools is not going to win you friends. Keep the focus on Rails rather than tearing down its competitors.
Choose the Right Moment
Don’t try to sell your boss on switching the team over to Ruby on Rails during release week when she has a million other things to worry about. Invite her out to lunch when things are relaxed. Explain to her why you think prototyping a project or two in Rails would be beneficial. Catching people at the right moment is a great way to help them keep an open mind about something new.
Evangelize by Example
Don’t just tell people why Rails is better than sliced bread, show them! It takes 30 minutes to put together some migrations and generate some scaffolding to show the basics of Rails. Forward them links to applications like Basecamp or Shopify to prove that real projects make real money using Rails. Even the harshest skeptic will have less ammunition if you use concrete real world examples to make your point.
Go Rescue Developers in Pain
Rails has a lot of things going for it in the world of web application development. It isn’t hard to make new converts. Just keep your message positive, choose the right moment, and get people involved by getting dirty with code. Most likely many of your fellow web developers will thank you for showing them a very cool up and coming framework, and then curse you for making them hate their day job more.