The Grass is Always Greener

Filed in archive Programming on January 31, 2006

For someone that publishes to a blog entitled "Java Entrepreneur" I have to admit that I haven't been doing much Java programming lately. First, I started work on a project using Ruby on Rails at the beginning of December. Then a couple of weeks ago I started a project where I was asked to use Python. This current project I'm working on with Python more specifically is going to be based around a web framework called TurboGears. I'll cover TurboGears at a later date here but for now I'll simply say that after the wonderful experience of creating a site with Rails I find myself banging my head on my desk in frustration with TurboGears.

Anyway, in both cases, with Rails and TurboGears, the utter lack of good documentation is painful. I'm sure that someday soon it will get better but as of today it is hard for me to find support when I need it most. Now when I encounter a problem I go to the one or two obvious sites. If I can't find an answer there I go to Google and start carefully selecting my keywords, I cross my fingers, and start searching with a hope that I will get lucky.

Maybe I'm just spoiled having worked with Java for so long and had the opportunity to take advantage of the enormous resources that it provides through documentation, forums, and tutorials. I will say that when I'm not programming in Java and I start working on another project using one of these other languages a part of me dreads not having the resources that I'm so used to having.