Rails creator: Silverlight may struggle

David Heinemeier Hansson is the creator of one of the hottest technologies amongst software developers these days: the Ruby on Rails Web framework. Hailing from Denmark, Hansson is a partner at 37signals, a Chicago firm that develops tools for communications and collaboration. InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill met with Hansson during the RailsConf 2007 event in Portland, Ore., last week, where Hansson expressed pride in how the community has latched onto Ruby on Rails. Development of Ruby on Rails 2.0, featuring Representational State Transfer (REST) is in progress. Hansson stressed Rails's emphasis on convention over configuration, suggested Microsoft is having battles internally regarding open source, and expressed doubts about whether Microsoft can win converts its new Silverlight technology.