This article is not intended to be a booster piece for Rails nor is it an expose. It’s simply an introduction to the technology. It contains both praise and criticism. At times the criticism might appear a bit heavy handed (especially to Rails enthusiasts), but don’t be fooled. Using any Web application framework is going to be tricky, whether it’s J2EE, ASP.NET, or PHP. In the long run, you can be a lot more productive with Rails than you can be with many other Web application development platforms, but it takes time to learn the ropes.