Bla-Bla List

Open source re-implementation of Ta-Da List, written in Java. Has inspired a bit of a pissing contest regarding the relative merits of Java + RIFE vs. Ruby + Rails for web app development. Cf. (a) Bla-Bla List developer Geert Bevin, who admits that he undertook the project specifically to prove that Ruby on Rails isn’t all that revolutionary; (b) David Heinemeier Hansson, developer of both the Rails framework and Ta-Da List app, who picks a few (possibly contrived?) examples that make Bla-Bla’s Java code look exceedingly verbose compared to Ta-Da’s Ruby.

Language/framework religion aside, it’s also interesting to note, when comparing the two, that Ta-Da’s UI is Ajax-ish (HTML + JavaScript), whereas Bla-Bla’s is Flash (by way of the Laszlo toolkit). Ta-Da’s UI feels snappier to me, overall, but Bla-Bla’s use of drag-and-drop makes reordering list items much easier than in Ta-Da.

★ Saturday, 19 March 2005