>>http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2007/09/7_reasons_i_switched_back_to_p_1.html
>>
>>Ruby vs. PHP, VFP vs. .Net, ... seems like a lot of programmers are very religious ...
>
>Do you expect a thread as long as that one? :)

Yes ;) The Perl/PHP/Python/Ruby crowd are at least as religious as we are here with VFP, maybe even more.

>
>It really was interesting to read, although I stopped reading after half an hour. Some thoughts:
>
>If it would have been a blog without the possibility to react, I'd now have a negative opinion about Rails/Ruby - not even knowing what they are - and a positive opinion about PHP.
>
>Thanks to the reactions I now realize that such opinions might have been entirely incorrect. (This is not the same as saying that one should have a positive opinion about Rails/Ruby and a negative one about PHP.)
>
>Reading that blog and all those reactions is like listening to people whom are perceived as experts and therefore have impact on me. Not so much because they DO have logical arguments (how could I know for sure), but rather because they APPARANTLY know the language and claim years of experience with it. It is indirect 'proof'.
>
>When listening to (okay, reading) people here when they discuss vfp and its competitors, I can use my own experiences to check their arguments at least in part. It enables me to decide for myself whether or not someone's knowledge is correct and the claim of experience is true. It is more direct 'proof'.

My thoughts *exactly*. I've been thinking about taking a serious look at Ruby/Rails as an alternate to VFP, especially one that will work well in the LAMP (LAMR?) world. So, I was alarmed that a significant Rails project "seemingly" failed. I agree the feedback gives more information and, I feel, balance to the issue.