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In reply to @bb_fresh · May 18, 2025@SpringStreetNYC @theo It did have its charm…nothing fancy, just got the job done
But then I remember all the boilerplate and xml and weird bean initialization problems and remember why we all moved on
Holy moly, you're right! On Tomcat 5 we had server.xml, web.xml, context.xml and tomcat-users.xml, JNDI data source for mysql and them beans on top.
I think it took me two painful years to really grok this whole setup to get basic CRUD working.
Still, I'm super grateful for those years because Rails was the painkiller I didn't even know I needed.
rails new my-appsuddenly did 90% of the directory setup and config heavy-liftingrails generate model|controller|migration|scaffoldtook all boilerplate out of my hand- ActiveRecord's validation and relationship semantics allowed me to literally write out what I wanted (in plain English!)
I hope that those who start making stuff today with AI have the same magic "wow!" moment that I felt in 2006 with Rails.