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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

#41
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.

Major upgrades in Rails has been complicated & time consuming in the past. Loosely coupled libraries mitigates the work of upgrades.

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

#42
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.

As the commenters pointed out, Express.js doesn't try to solve the same problems as Rails. Trying to use one for the other's use case doesn't make any sense.

Yes, but the problem is that there's still nothing in the node ecosystem that's as complete as Rails. Fine, express.js isn't going to do the job. Neither is anything else.

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

#44

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.

RedwoodJS may be something you want to check out.

https://redwoodjs.com/

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

#45

I don't understand the comparisons presented in the article. Comparing a full stack MVC framework to a front end library is as apples to oranges as it gets. IMHO frameworks such as NestJS and Adonis are more comparable to Ruby on Rails.

I think you don't want to support the article's claims, but you kind of support it by mentionning the choice that you need to make between NestJS and Adonis or any other frameworks. With the ruby ecosystem, there is almost always a clear convention on what to do (example: the conventional choice is to use rails, which leads to a bunch of pre-made choices)

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

#46

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.

As others have pointed in this thread, there's NestJS, Sails.js and AdonisJS, which are closer to Rails than Express or Next.js. And there's Meteor too, like the sibling post mentioned.

But to be fair 99% of JS backends I see are using Express (or AWS Lambda). Considering there's lots of choices I wonder if the problem is the fact the community never focused on a single solution. I wonder if a Merb/Rails-style merge between some of them would help that.

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

#47
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.

[deleted]

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

#48
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…

Arrghh... This week was the first in years where I didn't FOMO. And here comes Nest.js. I desperately need an ad blocker though for shiny new tech thingies.

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

#49
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Unfortunately Ruby's typing story is abysmal. I hope they manage to improve it soon, otherwise I fear the language will continue to flounder

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

#50
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.

I recall that when Active Storage was publicly announced[0], Laravel's Filesystem (itself a thin layer over Flysystem) had already been out for at least 2 years[1].

[0] https://rubyinrails.com/2017/07/21/rails-introduces-active-s...

[1] https://laravel.com/docs/5.0/releases

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