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Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

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Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#271

Post by lmm »

wastedhours wrote: post #99
lmm wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think an all-in-one framework is an advantage? As soon as you want to switch something out you end up fighting the framework and the tutorials. Better to start with dedicated libraries that each do one thing - it's inevitably where you're going to end up. (Not that I'd consider an untyped ecosystem in the first place, especially one as fond of "magic" (e.g. monkeypatching) as rails. I have sympathy for jus…

> it's inevitably where you're going to end up If the project's successful . The chance that most of what we're building with Rails hits the required escape velocity to require something other than Rails is a "Nice Problem". For the vast majority of things people are building for the web, "CRUD+Auth+Billing" is all that's needed, maybe with a few API hooks into something more novel running on different infra. If you…

> If the project's successful. The chance that most of what we're building with Rails hits the required escape velocity to require something other than Rails is a "Nice Problem".

> For the vast majority of things people are building for the web, "CRUD+Auth+Billing" is all that's needed, maybe with a few API hooks into something more novel running on different infra.

> If you then need it, then you can just build out a few more services with a few more API hooks, and then transition to a non-Rails stack as required.

True as far as it goes. But if we're just talking about a prototype for validating product/market fit, with the intent to transition to a more maintainable stack as and when that becomes necessary, what's the problem with "list of 30 random npm packages" as a starting point?

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#273

Post by drish »

collyw wrote: post #89

Its kind of ridiculous that in this industry we are expected to jump on new trends every couple of years to stay current, rather than learn how to use the tools that we do have well. Sure we get some benefits, but 90 % of the time it seems we are just chasing fads. (Yes is my answer to the question).

accurate.

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#274

Post by smw »

lmm wrote: post #271
wastedhours wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's inevitably where you're going to end up If the project's successful . The chance that most of what we're building with Rails hits the required escape velocity to require something other than Rails is a "Nice Problem". For the vast majority of things people are building for the web, "CRUD+Auth+Billing" is all that's needed, maybe with a few API hooks into something more novel running on different infra. If you…

> If the project's successful. The chance that most of what we're building with Rails hits the required escape velocity to require something other than Rails is a "Nice Problem". > For the vast majority of things people are building for the web, "CRUD+Auth+Billing" is all that's needed, maybe with a few API hooks into something more novel running on different infra. > If you then need it, then you can just build out…

> what's the problem with "list of 30 random npm packages" as a starting point?

The dude starting with rails will probably be done with the MVP before you decide _which_ 30 random npm packages to use.

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#275

Post by tekstar »

mgkimsal wrote: post #237
tekstar wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Web dev is in a different place now. Yup, but why? This is still true: > 97.2% of web projects were all about making an application server talk nicely to a relational database and then generating a front end that reflected the data model and that had javascript that Just Worked (everywhere).

> Yup, but why? Mobile and mobile-first thinking, perhaps. "webdev" is far more js-driven than it was 10-15 years ago. I'm not sure whether that's good or bad, but imo that accounts for much of the difference. 15 years ago I could build entire applications with a minimum of JS, and they were acceptable to clients. That's not really the case any more - there's more demand/need/expectation of js in web projects today.…

okay so to achieve a good mobile experience, you need a responsive layout and some sort of pjax rendering. That still doesn't explain the massive weight of current front-end solutions.

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#276

Post by lmm »

smw wrote: post #274
lmm wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the project's successful. The chance that most of what we're building with Rails hits the required escape velocity to require something other than Rails is a "Nice Problem". > For the vast majority of things people are building for the web, "CRUD+Auth+Billing" is all that's needed, maybe with a few API hooks into something more novel running on different infra. > If you then need it, then you can just build out…

> what's the problem with "list of 30 random npm packages" as a starting point? The dude starting with rails will probably be done with the MVP before you decide _which_ 30 random npm packages to use.

I'd probably just copy/paste from my current project TBH, which takes all of 5 seconds.

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#277

Post by ezekg »

fergie wrote: post #131

Rails really nailed the problems of web development as it was 10 years ago by (rightly) pointing out that 97.2% of web projects were all about making an application server talk nicely to a relational database and then generating a front end that reflected the data model and that had javascript that Just Worked (everywhere). Web dev is in a different place now. Developers don't generally install and maintain applicati…

You're speaking as if Rails is useless now, when in reality it's still a great tool depending on the job, especially since Rails has an API-only mode that works great with the modern SPA front-end ecosystem (sidenote: not every app needs to be a SPA). I built a company with it that provides a developer API, and that has a modern SPA front-end. Rails is still useful, especially for startups.

(And DHH didn't literally retire--he runs his company, Basecamp, which is built on Rails, which he actively maintains.)

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#278

Post by philwelch »

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…

I did full-time Ruby on Rails development for between three and five years. These days, a huge chunk of what's "included" in Rails is stuff I don't need, and a huge chunk of what's not included in Rails is absolutely essential:

Stuff included in Rails I don't need:

* ORM

* Heavyweight controllers

* Server-side HTML templating

Stuff not included in Rails that I do need:

* Basic DB-level sanity checks, such as uniqueness constraints that actually work

* Any kind of real frontend framework

Stuff that I desperately want that Rails makes fundamentally impossible:

* Sane concurrency

* Not having to pull my hair out over random values in my codebase magically turning into "nil"

The best pattern for developing basic web applications that I've seen lately is basically:

* Use React for the UI. (If you prefer another front-end framework, I don't really want to fight about it, but React is pretty damn good.) Host your statics, well, statically.

* For your backend, use the simplest possible mechanism that receives HTTP requests and emits JSON. If you're married to Ruby, Sinatra does this. Flask does this. Node and Go and Java all have relatively simple mechanisms for this. The mechanism doesn't matter. Route HTTP requests to function; return JSON (or some HTTP response object that encapsulates your JSON) from function.

* For interacting with a relational database, use sprocs. SQL isn't hard; ActiveRecord is probably the best example of the Rails antipattern of, "make easy things easier, and hard things harder".

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#279

Post by bdcravens »

nurettin wrote: post #23

RoR is relevant as long as the community is active, as long as there is job demand (see crossover, Stackoverflow, etc.). It is an excellent framework with gems to act as plugins (rack middleware) to serve websockets, forums, admin interfaces all with a few lines of configuration. Google, Microsoft, Facebook all maintain Ruby libraries in GitHub. So as long as you are doing Joe's textile website, it is the right tool.…

> So as long as you are doing Joe's textile website, it is the right tool.

I don't think Rails is the best tool for that. A static site or Wordpress are probably a better fit.

> Cloud scaling rails can be expensive, as apparent from horror stories [0] but a few manually managed instances with a load balancer and good web servers can go a long way.

It definitely can be, but I think most apps people are working on don't have a scaling issue (at least of the technology sort). When there is a scaling issue, it's often something related to the database (bad indexes, poor instance type, or N+1 queries)

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#280

Post by bdcravens »

tomc1985 wrote: post #73
nurettin wrote: post #23

RoR is relevant as long as the community is active, as long as there is job demand (see crossover, Stackoverflow, etc.). It is an excellent framework with gems to act as plugins (rack middleware) to serve websockets, forums, admin interfaces all with a few lines of configuration. Google, Microsoft, Facebook all maintain Ruby libraries in GitHub. So as long as you are doing Joe's textile website, it is the right tool.…

The demand for Rails people is still there. One just has to be good at it.

Where are all the jobs where you don't have to be good at it to get hired? :-)
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