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Don't make me think, or why I switched to Rails from JavaScript SPAs

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Re: Don't make me think, or why I switched to Rails from JavaScript SPAs

#31

Post by gavinray »

subpixel wrote: post #10
gavinray wrote: post #4

I used to write Rails professionally for many years This comparison isn't a good one. Rails is an all-encompasing framework. If you compare Rails to something like Nest.js, there's not much you're missing. Nest is one of the best application frameworks I've used in any language, and it comes with all this stuff you say JS doesn't have. --- EDIT: To clarify (because it is confusingly named), NestJS is a framework mode…

I can't help but think it is a reflection of the JS ecosystem that I assumed you had misspelled Next.js

This is a good point, updated parent post

Re: Don't make me think, or why I switched to Rails from JavaScript SPAs

#32

Post by pc86 »

designium wrote: post #8

I think the author is trying to compare what it takes to create an MVP web-app with all modern features versus creating it in the JS ecosystem. Also, Rails is well known to have Convention over Configuration. That helps to set up and maintain a project since everybody has to follow the same pattern. The cons is that you lose flexibility from the architecture perspective. But in Rails, you have ways to overcome that e…

I've seen this myself on the .NET side. Someone will create an MVC application then rip all the views out and tag everything with a decorator that turns those controller endpoints into API endpoints, then slap Angular or React on top of that. More recently I've seen Web APIs created which explicitly lack any front end integration (this is what we do at $DAYJOB when .NET makes sense).

Re: Don't make me think, or why I switched to Rails from JavaScript SPAs

#34

Post by lobstrosity420 »

pictur wrote: post #19

Choosing something and making a decision is not as difficult as it seems. You don't have to when someone comes along and tells you "we should use pnpm because it's much faster". Before using any tool, you take a brief look at how it works and what it does, and decide accordingly. I don't understand why you see having more than one option as a problem.

I mean, analysis paralysis is a real thing. But I think people vastly overestimate the value of having a golden hammer solution like Ruby on Rails on your ecosystem and downplay the disadvantages.

Re: Don't make me think, or why I switched to Rails from JavaScript SPAs

#35

Post by ratww »

lobstrosity420 wrote: post #22
designium wrote: post #8

I think the author is trying to compare what it takes to create an MVP web-app with all modern features versus creating it in the JS ecosystem. Also, Rails is well known to have Convention over Configuration. That helps to set up and maintain a project since everybody has to follow the same pattern. The cons is that you lose flexibility from the architecture perspective. But in Rails, you have ways to overcome that e…

I think in reality the JS ecosystem is fat with choice for convention over configuration style frameworks. Projects such as Nest, Sails and Adonis leave nothing on the table compared to Rails. The problem is a lot of programmers would rather loosely cobble something together with express than to stick to rigid standards. That's what I think actually leads to the problem of inane NodeJS codebases people always complai…

My hunch is that most JS developers just aren't aware of these frameworks. A lot of people in this thread are mixing up Next.js and NestJS, and NestJS is the most popular out of the three you mentioned. Sure it has a lot of stars on Github (44k), but even I had forgotten I had starred it.

Re: Don't make me think, or why I switched to Rails from JavaScript SPAs

#36

Post by kabes »

coffeefirst wrote: post #28
codingdave wrote: post #7

I think the author went too deep into details here, as this crowd is full of people who are going to be able to rip pieces of this article to shreds. But doing so both misses the larger point and in the process proves it - Rails gave them a set of answers that are good enough so they don't need to delve deeper and can just focus on their app. Rails is not the only choice that does so. And people with broader skill se…

Sure. And I think what makes Rails and Django shine is they have sound default answers. I’ve yet to see anything in Node that feels like a stable 1:1 replacement. Next.js is excellent, but you still need to sort out a lot of pieces on your own.

Meteor comes to mind

Re: Don't make me think, or why I switched to Rails from JavaScript SPAs

#37

Post by mohitgangrade »

I would say this is an oversimplification.

I like the choices I get when building with JavaScript. There's always something new to learn and I get to pick the flavors that I like to work with. :)

But I do envy the simplicity of Ruby on Rails. I might try it for my next project after reading this article.

Re: Don't make me think, or why I switched to Rails from JavaScript SPAs

#38

Post by chrisan »

pearjuice wrote: post #14
katzgrau wrote: post #2

I mostly work in Rails, but when I have to hop into a node project, it feels like I'm stepping back into PHP in terms of sheer madness. Barely any convention, lots of repetition and configuration - all things Rails specifically set out to solve.

PHP hasn't been madness for a long time. One could argue Laravel (a RoR inspired framework) has become better than RoR.

as a former Rails user now Laravel user, I would agree with this.

PHP has mage huge strides in typing too, I havent kept up with Ruby to know if they do the same

Re: Don't make me think, or why I switched to Rails from JavaScript SPAs

#40

Post by 20wenty »

This article resonated with me, but the main reason I moved from RoR apps to JS/SPA was hosting costs and scalability. I can build a SPA and host the bulk of it on Amazon S3 and pay significantly less monthly costs AND have scalability built in. If you've figured out a way to do something remotely similar with Rails, I'd be back in a heartbeat.
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