9 ms·

I'd add Phoenix to the list when it gets its documentation in the same echelon as that of Rails or Laravel. It may be as productive if you already know how to u

I'd add Phoenix to the list when it gets its documentation in the same echelon as that of Rails or Laravel. It may be as productive if you already know how to use it, but good luck building anything non-trivial on your own if you don't.

brightball 5y ago
Don’t you usually learn how to use your tools before you build with them? This feels like a strange response.
- nickjj 5y ago
  I've always found the Phoenix docs to be more like references. There's "guide-like" aspects to it but in my opinion it's no where near the level of where the Rails docs are. I agree with the person we're replying to, I almost always found myself having to research third party sources when learning Phoenix (blog posts, IRC, etc.) to get answers to questions that I never had to ask about Rails, Flask or Django because their docs covered it very well. The Rails doc feels like you have DHH at your side guiding you on exactly how to do something in the context of a practical application and whenever you think to yourself "that's great, but what if I want to do...", often times the very next sentence in the docs will answer your exact question. The Rails routing docs https://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html https://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html are a great example of this when they talk about namespaces and scopes but there's a million other examples. It feels like it was written by folks who have been through the thick of it and back 100 times over to extract out the exact questions folks would have when using various features of the framework. Each piece of the docs feels like it's a mini book written on par with any book on a technical subject and then there's a completely separate reference guide docs with more examples. Even the styling of the page itself just feels good. It's really easy to skim and navigate. The Phoenix docs feel more like a big wall of text with a few small headers and code blocks. It's hard to explain but personally my brain identifies the Rails docs as easy to mentally parse where as the Phoenix docs are not based on nothing more than the styling aspect alone. Overall the Rails docs feel like they are written with a ton of empathy around the person reading them, completely holding your hand from beginning to end to solve a practical issue which is exactly what you need when learning something new. The reference guides are always there if all you care about are a few quick examples.
  - brightball 5y ago
    That’s true. Rails docs are fantastic. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m a big Rails fan as well. Been using it for a decade at this point. It’s the best development experience out there. But eventually, you’re going to run into issues that are harder to address with it. Happens on every big project I’ve run into. But, they all became big projects thanks to the productivity of Rails.
- lovich 5y ago
  As a bronze league engineer who still pulls a decent wage, you absolutely do not need to understand your tools to build things.
pythonaut_16 5y ago
What do you find lacking in the Phoenix docs? I've always been impressed with the docs in the major Elixir and Phoenix libraries.
- MathCodeLove 5y ago
  There's a good deal that I feel is lacking, but a big issue is the lack of continuity of documentation between Phoenix's component parts. If I want to build a CRUD app with Rail, Django, or Laravel, then I can get all the information I need from their docs. If I want to do the same in Phoenix, I'll have to jump between the docs for Phoenix, Ecto, Plug, and HEEx/Liveview. Rails, while it has its equivalent of these modules, presents them in a cohesive manner and makes it clear the role they play in the greater context of the application. Phoenix doesn't make it nearly as clear and instead of being able to gradually learn these various concepts as they become relevant you have to take on the burden of them all before being able to even begin to be productive.
  - sfusato 5y ago
    Have you looked at the Phoenix Guides [1]? [1] https://hexdocs.pm/phoenix/overview.html https://hexdocs.pm/phoenix/overview.html
    - MathCodeLove 5y ago
      Yes. They do a poor job of the above and I still stand by what I said.
gregors 5y ago
I like Phoenix, I really really do...but you are correct regarding docs. The documentation in Phoenix is fine for "what does this function do?". However, if you want the Rails Guides experience - it's just not there.

brightball 5y ago

Don’t you usually learn how to use your tools before you build with them? This feels like a strange response.

nickjj 5y ago
I've always found the Phoenix docs to be more like references. There's "guide-like" aspects to it but in my opinion it's no where near the level of where the Rails docs are. I agree with the person we're replying to, I almost always found myself having to research third party sources when learning Phoenix (blog posts, IRC, etc.) to get answers to questions that I never had to ask about Rails, Flask or Django because their docs covered it very well. The Rails doc feels like you have DHH at your side guiding you on exactly how to do something in the context of a practical application and whenever you think to yourself "that's great, but what if I want to do...", often times the very next sentence in the docs will answer your exact question. The Rails routing docs https://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html https://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html are a great example of this when they talk about namespaces and scopes but there's a million other examples. It feels like it was written by folks who have been through the thick of it and back 100 times over to extract out the exact questions folks would have when using various features of the framework. Each piece of the docs feels like it's a mini book written on par with any book on a technical subject and then there's a completely separate reference guide docs with more examples. Even the styling of the page itself just feels good. It's really easy to skim and navigate. The Phoenix docs feel more like a big wall of text with a few small headers and code blocks. It's hard to explain but personally my brain identifies the Rails docs as easy to mentally parse where as the Phoenix docs are not based on nothing more than the styling aspect alone. Overall the Rails docs feel like they are written with a ton of empathy around the person reading them, completely holding your hand from beginning to end to solve a practical issue which is exactly what you need when learning something new. The reference guides are always there if all you care about are a few quick examples.
- brightball 5y ago
  That’s true. Rails docs are fantastic. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m a big Rails fan as well. Been using it for a decade at this point. It’s the best development experience out there. But eventually, you’re going to run into issues that are harder to address with it. Happens on every big project I’ve run into. But, they all became big projects thanks to the productivity of Rails.
lovich 5y ago
As a bronze league engineer who still pulls a decent wage, you absolutely do not need to understand your tools to build things.

pythonaut_16 5y ago

What do you find lacking in the Phoenix docs? I've always been impressed with the docs in the major Elixir and Phoenix libraries.

MathCodeLove 5y ago
There's a good deal that I feel is lacking, but a big issue is the lack of continuity of documentation between Phoenix's component parts. If I want to build a CRUD app with Rail, Django, or Laravel, then I can get all the information I need from their docs. If I want to do the same in Phoenix, I'll have to jump between the docs for Phoenix, Ecto, Plug, and HEEx/Liveview. Rails, while it has its equivalent of these modules, presents them in a cohesive manner and makes it clear the role they play in the greater context of the application. Phoenix doesn't make it nearly as clear and instead of being able to gradually learn these various concepts as they become relevant you have to take on the burden of them all before being able to even begin to be productive.
- sfusato 5y ago
  Have you looked at the Phoenix Guides [1]? [1] https://hexdocs.pm/phoenix/overview.html https://hexdocs.pm/phoenix/overview.html
  - MathCodeLove 5y ago
    Yes. They do a poor job of the above and I still stand by what I said.

gregors 5y ago

I like Phoenix, I really really do...but you are correct regarding docs. The documentation in Phoenix is fine for "what does this function do?". However, if you want the Rails Guides experience - it's just not there.