DMB Lyrics Database v2
I'm in the process of rewriting the DMB Summer 2004 Lyrics Database using Ruby on Rails. All the logic is done, I just need to work on upholding the DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle by putting some reusable components in layouts or partials. The CSS should be relative simple so I think I'll have this up by the end of the week.
The current database was written in PHP in a purely procedural way. Yeah, it was pretty easy to write that way, but I paid for that ease when I looked back to see how I did something and the code was pretty hard to follow. Contrast this with Ruby on Rails, which enforces a Model-View-Controller framework. At first I found RoR a bit restrictive, but once I started to learn how to use it, I really enjoyed the simplicity of it.
I have to admit, it was that "Creating a weblog in 15 minutes" screencast that got me to drink the Kool-Aid. In reality though, it has taken me a long time to finish the relatively simple lyrics database. The 15 minutes thing may be true, and I know it is mostly a marketing device, but there is a caveat that they don't mention: you have to have some knowledge of the framework (and that's something that takes a lot longer than 15 minutes).
That said, Rails makes programming database access trivial. Both the PHP I wrote for the lyrics database and some SQL access stuff I've written in my C# class last semester were pretty painful. At the very least, scaffolding gives functionality in one line that might take a few dozen in C#, however limited scaffolding might be (after you see what you can actually do with Rails).
Anyway, keep an eye out for the new DMB Summer 2004 Lyrics Database and a few other things I'm working on in Rails.
Technorati Tags: lyrics, music, dave matthews band, dmb, ruby on rails, databases, programming, development