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Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

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Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#11

Post by whalesalad »

stevebmark wrote: post #8

I struggle with how to say "both Ruby and Rails are poor technology choices" without sounding ranty. I have seen nothing good come from the flexibility and non-portable conventions of these tools. I have seen so much nicer web stack designs than Rails, with none of the problems. Maybe if you're building a Basecamp type site - slow / speed doesn't matter, limited views / minimal front end functionality, small surface…

This viewpoint is so far off from reality that I don’t even know how to respond.

GitHub, Airbnb, Shopify, Indiegogo, Kickstarter, Urban Dictionary... the list goes on and on and on. Having the hardline opinion that Ruby or rails is slow is plain ol’ ignorance. You can build highly performant apps in Ruby and Rails, you just need to know what to optimize. The same applies to any other language or platform. Facebook is still humming along on PHP.

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#13

Post by paulie_a »

whalesalad wrote: post #4

I commented a few months ago that if I was starting a new company today I’d use Rails without hesitation. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17355776 Well, I’m starting a company and our current prototype is Rails. I don’t regret my decision at all, although after spending the last four years writing exclusively Python it’s been a little jarring. The muscle memory is still there though and after two weeks I’m almos…

To be fair the technology stack is almost irrelevant when you are starting a company. write it in perl, python, rails, hell write it in old school cgi and use c++. It all comes down to how many sales did you make today. The clients will rarely care what language was used behind the scenes.

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#14

Post by hspak »

Rails is still probably the most productive* web framework out there. It's got a mature ecosystem that covers it's weaknesses.

* productive as in easy to get started, easy to iterate, easy to get things done.

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#15

Post by [deleted] »

whalesalad wrote: post #11
stevebmark wrote: post #8

I struggle with how to say "both Ruby and Rails are poor technology choices" without sounding ranty. I have seen nothing good come from the flexibility and non-portable conventions of these tools. I have seen so much nicer web stack designs than Rails, with none of the problems. Maybe if you're building a Basecamp type site - slow / speed doesn't matter, limited views / minimal front end functionality, small surface…

This viewpoint is so far off from reality that I don’t even know how to respond. GitHub, Airbnb, Shopify, Indiegogo, Kickstarter, Urban Dictionary... the list goes on and on and on. Having the hardline opinion that Ruby or rails is slow is plain ol’ ignorance. You can build highly performant apps in Ruby and Rails, you just need to know what to optimize. The same applies to any other language or platform. Facebook is…

[deleted]

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#16

Post by thinkingkong »

I mean... Let's pause for a minute and remove the year, and remove the language / framework. What are we trying to accomplish?

If we know something really well and there are enough developers to support an ecosystem and the talent pool in your is big enough just use whatever you want.

PHP in 2018? SURE.

C++ in 2018? SURE (You masochist)

Rails in 2018? Youre damn right I would.

GO in 2018? OK. Fine. Whatever.

This is highly opinionated, but our jobs are to make stuff that works in a predictable, less risky way. Do that.

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#18

Post by sho »

stevebmark wrote: post #8

I struggle with how to say "both Ruby and Rails are poor technology choices" without sounding ranty. I have seen nothing good come from the flexibility and non-portable conventions of these tools. I have seen so much nicer web stack designs than Rails, with none of the problems. Maybe if you're building a Basecamp type site - slow / speed doesn't matter, limited views / minimal front end functionality, small surface…

> I struggle with how to say "both Ruby and Rails are poor technology choices" without sounding ranty

Probably because you offer no evidence whatsoever, a typical characteristic of rants?

I could entertain an argument that Rails is a poor technology choice. It certainly makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot without sufficient experience, despite that being a conscious tradeoff towards ease of learning. But Ruby? What, precisely, is wrong with Ruby?

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#19

Post by schizoidboy »

sho wrote: post #9

Of course it is. The question is kind of silly. For basically any startup, my advice would be: unless and until you can credibly explain a genuine reason why you can't use Rails - use Rails. I'm not some crazy fanboy but until someone can actually name a seriously competitive, batteries-included, all-in-one framework* which delivers everything, or even most of, what Rails does - it is very relevant and you ignore it…

> your list of 30 random npm packages does not satisfy the requirement

I like Rails, but to be fair, doesn't Rails also require a list of 30 random gems? Unless things have changed, authorization and authentication aren't even built-in, so people have to navigate random third party gems, and remember, you don't want CanCan, but you want the fork, CanCanCan. Again, I like Rails, and maybe it's still the nearest to an all-in-one framework, but I think somebody who took the next step and created a truly all-in-one framework would win big.

My current project:

  $ grep -c ^gem Gemfile
  75
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