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I Miss Rails

chanind.github.io

361–370 of 522 posts

Re: I Miss Rails

#361
from TFA:

> "Now, I know Rails isn’t universally beloved by developers, and I’m not suggesting that we give up React and es7 and go back to writing server-templated web-apps like it’s 2012 again."

Why not, exactly? It worked well then and it works well now. Not everything needs to be some 10MiB javascript bundle delivered to a late-model version of Chrome served from a static bucket.

Re: I Miss Rails

#362
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I just wish Rails had some degree of static typing (a la TypeScript.) As a Rails code base grows and patterns are required beyond the basics, it becomes a nightmare to tell what comes from where. You'd probably gain some mileage from that in your React codebase.

I've been meaning to revisit Kotlin's web framework offerings. I've used it in small doses for Android and AWS Lambda functions and, IMO, it seems to potentially be the best of both worlds; strict where it needs to be and flexible where it doesn't. I'm currently supporting a few Python Lambda functions at work and they feel very slapdash in comparison.

Kotlin + Dropwizard is a great choice (or Spring Boot). I've used it in production and it's got the best aspects of Rails (opinionated) with the best aspects of a modern, statically typed language running on the JVM (need I say more?).

Re: I Miss Rails

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>demanded by the tech industry today. That attitude needs to get out of everyone's head. You are the tech industry. If you want to build something in Rails, a mature and capable framework that has tons of support and won't go away, just do it. Who's going to stop you? Applies to any other technology that's stable as well.

The trouble is "we," the developers aren't the tech industry making the decisions. The managers, who once were full time developers, are making the decisions. I can say hey let's use this stable, mature tool, but which catches enthusiasm more? That or the guy drooling over React and all the complex mystery JS libs saying it's the best thing ever?

And/or the poor PHB falls prey to the sales pitch of "if you rewrite it in fad.js, you'll save tons of money".

Re: I Miss Rails

#364
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually the bane of JS community's existence. JS developed so fast and so wildly that there was never a breather to form and write down best practices or opinions. This is jarring to someone coming from the Rails world where a lot of magic is happening, there are strict opinions (heck, it's in the subtitle of the copy) and strict conventions to adhere too. JS is wild west compared to that. This is not to say…

> “...JS developed so fast and so wildly that there was never a breather to form and write down best practices or opinions.” js and ruby were released in 1995, with rails coming 10 years later. so js development wasn’t fast in the least. after the little ajax blip resulting from outlook web access’s release in 98, js stagnated until node came along and made it interesting again. prototype/jquery a little before it an…

JS may be released in 1995 but it was not used much for anything except changing status bar messages, or image rollovers (remember those?) for at least ten years. Sure there also was Microsofts DHTML on IE, which failed to get much traction. Only starting with GMail and AJAX in 2004-2005 JS started to be treated seriously, it still took some years and SPA hype to become "a must". So about ten years max. Also Rails was constantly evolving since inception, alas, a lot of JS is revolving, i.e. solving the same problems over and over again, just with different approaches. The last point would be that people initially taking up Rails were not new to programming and usually switched from PHP or Java. Now Javascript is often the first (alas, often the only) language people learn. So I'd say the culture is quite different.

Re: I Miss Rails

#365
post #60

There is a universe where there exists only 1 programming language and only a single web framework. That would be cool to experience.

There are many languages that work on both client and server. Most obviously JavaScript/Typescript, but also Scala and Clojure. If webassembly really takes off you can add Rust to this list. I'm not sure how a combined framework for server and client side would work.

Ocaml with Ocsigen or Bucklescript/ReasonML

Re: I Miss Rails

#366

> if the modern equivalent of Rails already exists, please let me know! You're in luck. Rails 5.2.3 was released 20 hours ago. More seriously, I feel rails is still excellent and I'm happy to work with it every day. I'd be interested to hear more about what makes rails not modern? I find it a very productive framework. EDIT: If you're talking about missing a JS equivalent of rails, do you know about Loopback? https:/…

>More seriously, I feel rails is still excellent and I'm happy to work with it every day. I'd be interested to hear more about what makes rails not modern?

The whole thing he explains in the post: he wants an all-rounder like Rails but which covers the SPA/JS side.

Re: I Miss Rails

#367
post #14

Elixir and Phoenix are excellent, and you'll recognize many of the same concepts in these. The communities are excellent as well, and welcoming to newcomers.

I've found that Elixir & Phoenix are the right abstraction of Rails-like productivity but "enterprise" reliability and scalabiliy. You get real-time functionality out of the box (dosen't feel cobbled together like Rails channels and blows anything Node out of the water). And with LiveWiew coming soon, it's going to be even quicker to build modern interactive experiences.

Re: I Miss Rails

#368

> if the modern equivalent of Rails already exists, please let me know! You're in luck. Rails 5.2.3 was released 20 hours ago. More seriously, I feel rails is still excellent and I'm happy to work with it every day. I'd be interested to hear more about what makes rails not modern? I find it a very productive framework. EDIT: If you're talking about missing a JS equivalent of rails, do you know about Loopback? https:/…

> More seriously, I feel rails is still excellent and I'm happy to work with it every day. I'd be interested to hear more about what makes rails not modern? The whole thing he explains in the post: he wants an all-rounder like Rails but which covers the SPA/JS side.

I think many of us have realized that the SPA, which introduces an entire second application into your stack, isn't that cost effective. I'm more interested in turbolinks and if absolutely necessary, maybe something like http://instantclick.io to get an 80/20 payoff.

For folks here doing startups, imagine the speed boost of maintaining one less entire application than your competitors.

Re: I Miss Rails

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main benefit i got is that, i could independently package SSR React Component, then my application is just a composition of those packages.

Honestly, this is such an un-sexy answer that it might shock some sense into people that are still on the fence. It might not be too late for you. Seriously, gang: Rails is productive, fun and lets you focus on making your customers happy instead of optimal package composition.

I was a Rails user for about 4 years. The DX of Rails is unbeatable still today.

But this is a trade-off i take into account.

I even have a production system running on Rails, with frontend React.

This stack's benefits to me:

- Universality (one Typescript to rule all backend and frontend)

- Separation of concern (no more MVC, only components)

- Scalability (each part could scale independently)

- Modularity (the business logic now could have its own service as a graphql API)

- User interactivity in less code (this is why SSR with React)

My new application on this "modern stack" is nearly to be released. If you want to know more, ping me on twitter @revskill.

Re: I Miss Rails

#370
post #4

Why miss it, come on back, the water's still warm and the dev is still as fast as ever in Rails. Honestly, the JS stacks all seem vastly more annoying on so many levels. It seems like the JS ecosystem changes so fast because it knows better is possible, so it just tries to reinvent itself over and over. The JavaScript world starts with this weird prototype based language with a syntax that looks like it might be some…

JS is not my first choice for many things but I still have to work with it often enough to know that most of your complaints about the language haven’t been a problem for years. It’s improved a great deal and is much better to work with lately—more so if you don’t install a library for everything under the sun (because you really don’t have to in order to be productive). There are valid complaints to levy against the…

> complaints about the language haven’t been a problem for years.

If we're being fair, what you say is true only if you are starting a greenfield project.

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