Elixir seems to be generating quite a bit of buzz:

Elixir is a declarative layer on top of SQLAlchemy. It is a fairly thin wrapper, which provides the ability to define model objects following the Active Record design pattern, and using a DSL syntax similar to that of the Ruby on Rails ActiveRecord system.

Some background on the project is available as well.

Via: Simon Willison’s Weblog

Patrick Thomson has written an article called How to Beat Rails that outlines some ways that Python can “beat” Rails at the web application framework game.

It’s been getting quite a bit of buzz lately, and I’d be very curious to hear what others (i.e. real developers) had to say about it.

Here’s a short list of reasons to use Django instead of Rails:

Browsing around the wonderful programming.reddit.com last night, I came across a post titled Why Django kicks Ruby on Rails’ collective ass. This is an interesting article, mainly because in a sense it is right, but it goes about explaining Django’s benefits all wrong…

Worth reading if you are trying to compare both frameworks.

Update: The site is really slow right now. You might want to try it later.

According to Nate, the Ruby on Rails site is (still) powered by PHP.

…but then, so is this site. ;)

Update: Adrian is quick to point out that the Django site is built on Django. Also, I believe the phrase is “Eat one’s own dog food.” But I think I like the Nate-ized version better. Heh.

KwangErn Liew asks which web framework is the best?

Update: Fixed the link.

Quoth David Pollak in his Web Framework Manifesto:

After touring a whole bunch of web frameworks, I’ve come to the conclusion that no existing framework satisfies the needs of a broad range of web developers. The existing web frameworks suffer from a wide variety of problems, conceptual and implementation-wise, that make way too much work for the web developer, the deployment guys, the folks who do application maintenance, and/or the end users.

Unfortunately he doesn’t have much to say about Python web frameworks because he has been “unable to wrap [his] head around Python.”

Yet another Rails/Django Comparison:

In this paper, we compare the two frameworks from the point of view of a developer attempting to choose one of the two frameworks for a new project.

This one appears to be a little more “academic” than others. Check it out.

Thanks go to Lon for the link.

Mike still likes Django more than Rails.

Joel Spolsky writes about the language wars. I’m sure his comments about Ruby on Rails (about halfway down the column) will earn him some flames.

Update: DHH responds here and here. Winning quote:

I swear I couldn’t make this stuff up even if I tried. Joel, you’re my new hero of irony. And as soon as you start selling those t-shirts with “Serious Business Stuff”, I got green ready to flow. Short of that, I’d take a red teddy bear with the embroidering “Someone is Going to Get Fired”.

Heh!

This news is from the other day, but I somehow missed it until just now…

Quoth Jason:

Rails turns 2 and Apple sends over a little birthday gift: Ruby on Rails will be included with Leopard (both server and client). It’s been quite an amazing ride for a little web application framework we extracted from Basecamp (Basecamp was the first Rails app and the reason Rails exists today).

More at the Rails blog.