Aaron Rustad, Technical Architect for Anassina, has written Ruby on Rails and J2EE: Is there room for both? for IBM’s developerWorks. It compares Rails with Struts and show the power of convention over configuration by listing code for similar actions. In summary, Aaron concludes:

So, should you consider Rails for your next Web application? Well, why shouldn’t you? It’s a well-written stack of components that work well with each other and are based upon industry accepted enterprise patterns. The Ruby language allows for fast development and adds to the framework by generating much of the application plumbing. Those who are familiar with MVC and ORM frameworks available in the Java world will have no difficulty wrapping their minds around Rails.

That’s a big part of the reason why Ruby on Rails is enjoying rapid uptake and grabbing mind share left and right. It’s the same ideas! There’s no paradigm revolution in terms of the core patterns and approaches that drives the framework. It’s all about taking familiar concepts and bringing them into a context of convention over configuration, tight integration across a full stack, and of course Ruby.