Coming out of high school in 1994, I had a lot of programming projects in the works. A big one, The Legend of Talibah, was a DOS based console style (mid 90's console) RPG. As I worked on TLOT, I turned to the Internet for support of all kinds. What I found was a computer game development scene up in arms in a debate between DOS based game development and what Win95 promised to bring to the gaming world - DirectX.
Here are 10 random parallels I see between now and then:
| RoR vs PHP | DOS vrs DirectX |
|---|---|
| Everyone is debating RoR vs PHP. | Everyone debated DirectX vs DOS. |
| Some of the people evangelizing RoR are respected friends. | Some of the people evangelizing DirectX were respected friends. |
| RoR means learning something new. | DirectX means learning something new. |
| RoR abstracts us further from the system. | DirectX abstracts us further from the system. |
| PHP has a big community and lots of libraries while RoR is relatively new and unproven. | DOS had a big community and lots of libraries while DirectX was relatively new and unproven. |
| PHP has lots of frameworks to choose from while Rails just has ROR. | DOS had lots of frameworks to choose from while Win95 just had DirectX. |
| RoR has a huge pile of code before you ever get started building something. | DirectX has a huge pile of code before you ever get started building something. |
| Most webhosts provide PHP. | Most systems, even the new Win95 systems, had DOS support. |
| RoR is being pushed by the Mac camp. | DirectX was being pushed by the MS camp. |
| Every new copy of OSX will have RoR support. | Every new copy of Windows would have DirectX support. |
So, I kept working on The Legend of Talibah. Against the advise of many peers, I continued the project in DOS. I had libraries that did everything I wanted from joystick support to audio mixing. It lingered on until the end of 1999, when I officially canned the project. There was no room left in the world for my little DOS game. I was on the wrong side of the DOS vs DirectX debate.
I realize this whole thing is a rather unfair comparison. I'm just say'n that I'm feeling that same vibe again.
Hey, at least I was right about one thing. I've never did like Java.
*evil grin*
1 comment:
Apples and Oranges. You are making a completely invalid comparison based on some absurd broad criteria. No doubt someone could use some other criteria to spin the argument in the other direction.
Also you a ignoring the fact that there were fundamental technical and economic reasons why DOS died. Reasons that don't apply to PHP. I don't see PHP being killed off anytime soon as much as I think it is grossly overrated as a development tool.
Oh and RoR is another one of those hype driven technologies that go nowhere. I fully expect to be reading lots of "what happened to RoR" articles in 2-3 years.
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