After reading “Rails is yesterday’s software”, I need to reply • Hacker News Board

Re: After reading “Rails is yesterday’s software”, I need to reply

#21

Post by askyourmother » Wed, May 11, 2016, 1:43 PM UTC

blub wrote: post #6

This is the old "use the right tool for the job" cop-out. The original post went deeper than that. I would summarize it like this: can modern complex, large-scale web apps be built with the tools we have today, be they Python, Ruby or Javascript? Or do we need an entire new class of tools which have traditionally been used to build large scale systems in the past? It's a multi-faceted question of type systems, toolin…

Rails codebases do not age well, and are always unpleasant to work on. I never saw the same issue with django codebases of a similar age. Nor even ones from Perl or PHP frameworks either.

No. It is a special combination of the shiny insecure magic of Rails, mixed with the happy meal mentality and abilities of most Rails developers.

Re: After reading “Rails is yesterday’s software”, I need to reply

#22

Post by carsongross » Wed, May 11, 2016, 1:43 PM UTC

blub wrote: post #6

This is the old "use the right tool for the job" cop-out. The original post went deeper than that. I would summarize it like this: can modern complex, large-scale web apps be built with the tools we have today, be they Python, Ruby or Javascript? Or do we need an entire new class of tools which have traditionally been used to build large scale systems in the past? It's a multi-faceted question of type systems, toolin…

can modern complex, large-scale web apps be built with the tools we have today, be they Python, Ruby or Javascript?

They absolutely can be built using just Rails (or python) and HTML.

I won't shill any harder about how, but it's not only possible, it's enjoyable and easy. I've done it.

Re: After reading “Rails is yesterday’s software”, I need to reply

#23

Post by askyourmother » Wed, May 11, 2016, 1:45 PM UTC

hashkb wrote: post #15

Author is being nice, but I'm happy to point out that author of replied-to post is revealing they are a frustrated novice. All the focus on "Rails made programming cool" tells me "I do things for dumb reasons." Clear case of chasing the dragon.

Aren't most if not all Rails programmers just chasing shiny magic features? Rails programmers tend to be like a McDonald's happy meal - uninspired, fills a hole, make do.

Re: After reading “Rails is yesterday’s software”, I need to reply

#24

Post by lubonay » Wed, May 11, 2016, 1:48 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #12

melling wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Choose the right tool for the job" What exactly does that mean? It's a vague response that people have used for years when they don't want to explain why they chose a particular tool. In my experience, many developers take the path of least resistance and use what they are comfortable with and that's why "it's the right tool for the job".

Sometimes that's exactly what it means. The reason you see frameworks like Rails catching on, slow and bloated as it can be (and I say this as someone that loves the RoR ecosystem), is that developer time is generally more expensive than CPU time.

Couldn't agree more. Business (the people who pay us to code) generally doesn't care about performance if it's "good enough to ship". Time to market, on the other hand, is a matter of life and death.

Re: After reading “Rails is yesterday’s software”, I need to reply

#25

Post by blub » Wed, May 11, 2016, 1:48 PM UTC

mbell wrote: post #16

blub wrote: post #6

This is the old "use the right tool for the job" cop-out. The original post went deeper than that. I would summarize it like this: can modern complex, large-scale web apps be built with the tools we have today, be they Python, Ruby or Javascript? Or do we need an entire new class of tools which have traditionally been used to build large scale systems in the past? It's a multi-faceted question of type systems, toolin…

> The original post went deeper than that. If there was depth, I missed it. The only two points I got from it were 'I prefer static typing over duck typing' and 'avoid dependency hell'. The original post didn't add anything new to either argument and both have existed and been rehashed over and over again for decades.

The trick is to ignore everything until the "duck typing" picture including the picture. Then to pay attention to the last four paragraps.

Re: After reading “Rails is yesterday’s software”, I need to reply

#26

Post by askyourmother » Wed, May 11, 2016, 1:48 PM UTC

gavinpc wrote: post #20

blub wrote: post #6

This is the old "use the right tool for the job" cop-out. The original post went deeper than that. I would summarize it like this: can modern complex, large-scale web apps be built with the tools we have today, be they Python, Ruby or Javascript? Or do we need an entire new class of tools which have traditionally been used to build large scale systems in the past? It's a multi-faceted question of type systems, toolin…

The original post (not this OP) was clearly a response to Rich Hickey's talk "Simplicity Matters," which was given at a Ruby conference.[0] Particularly the part about "1,000 gems," which Hickey calls "hairballs" in the talk. I've started calling all packages hairballs since watching that. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI8tNMsozo0&t=15m39s

To be fair, given the quality of the code from most Rails developers, the gems are more like turds than hairballs.

Re: After reading “Rails is yesterday’s software”, I need to reply

#27

Post by mberning » Wed, May 11, 2016, 1:50 PM UTC

I personally love ruby and rails and still find it to be extremely effective and adaptable to most web development tasks.

As people flee the platform a huge amount of opportunities are going to open up for that still enjoy the platform. I can't wait.

Re: After reading “Rails is yesterday’s software”, I need to reply

#28

Post by collyw » Wed, May 11, 2016, 1:50 PM UTC

blub wrote: post #6

This is the old "use the right tool for the job" cop-out. The original post went deeper than that. I would summarize it like this: can modern complex, large-scale web apps be built with the tools we have today, be they Python, Ruby or Javascript? Or do we need an entire new class of tools which have traditionally been used to build large scale systems in the past? It's a multi-faceted question of type systems, toolin…

Actually I would put Ruby, Python and PHP and server side JS into the same category. Need something more performant, look at C or Java. JS has it's own niche on the front end, so you don't really have a choice there. Need concurrency, look at Erlang or GO.

Re: After reading “Rails is yesterday’s software”, I need to reply

#29

Post by criddell » Wed, May 11, 2016, 1:50 PM UTC

blub wrote: post #6

This is the old "use the right tool for the job" cop-out. The original post went deeper than that. I would summarize it like this: can modern complex, large-scale web apps be built with the tools we have today, be they Python, Ruby or Javascript? Or do we need an entire new class of tools which have traditionally been used to build large scale systems in the past? It's a multi-faceted question of type systems, toolin…

> In the future it might mean using (gulp) Java + WebAssembly

You know, after being out of the Java world for about ten years now, I'm starting to get the itch to use it again. I was one of those people that used to joke about programming in XML, but that's really just a layer of indirection which is often a good solution to a problem.

It's a very nice language, is fast, and has so far not been destroyed by Oracle. Plus JavaFX may be ugly, gut it is a cross platform GUI toolkit that works.

Re: After reading “Rails is yesterday’s software”, I need to reply

#30

Post by blub » Wed, May 11, 2016, 1:51 PM UTC

carsongross wrote: post #22

blub wrote: post #6

This is the old "use the right tool for the job" cop-out. The original post went deeper than that. I would summarize it like this: can modern complex, large-scale web apps be built with the tools we have today, be they Python, Ruby or Javascript? Or do we need an entire new class of tools which have traditionally been used to build large scale systems in the past? It's a multi-faceted question of type systems, toolin…

can modern complex, large-scale web apps be built with the tools we have today, be they Python, Ruby or Javascript? They absolutely can be built using just Rails (or python) and HTML. I won't shill any harder about how, but it's not only possible, it's enjoyable and easy. I've done it.

Why not? I would be curious to see how people tackle large, complex web software in an efficient way - that is with tools support, not by fighting against them and working around inadequacies.

Example: if the unit tests represent 50%+ of the code base, one is probably working around dynamic typing.

And here's some examples of complex software for comparison: image editor, digital audio workstation, CAD, video conferencing, computer vision & imaging, office suite, large games (think DeusEx, not minesweeper).

Not complex: almost anything CRUD