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Returning to Rails in 2026

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Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#51

Post by jmusall »

vintagedave wrote: post #39
f311a wrote: post #37

I love the batteries that RoR or Django gives you, but then I also remember how much time it takes to maintain old projects. Updating a project that was started 5-6 years ago takes a lot of time. Part of that is managing dependencies. For Django, they can easily go above 100. Some of them have to be compiled with specific versions of system libraries. Even Docker does not save you from a lot of problems. Right now, I…

Sometimes I think the issue here is churn . Security fixes aside, what is it that updated dependencies really give? Can't some of these projects just... stop?

I think you could only get around this by forcing your whole dependency chain to only add non-breaking security fixes (or backport them for all versions in existence). Otherwise small changes will propagate upwards and snowball into major updates.

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#52

Post by [deleted] »

f311a wrote: post #46
BeefySwain wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does batteries included somehow result in upgrading years old projects being a larger lift? I would think the opposite.

My medium-sized Django projects had close to 100 dependencies, and when you want to update to a new Django version, the majority of them must be updated too. Thankfully, updating to a new Django version is usually simple. It does not require many code changes. But finding small bugs after an update is hard, unless you have very good test coverage. New versions of middleware/Django plugins often behave slightly differ…

[deleted]

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#53

Post by BoorishBears »

neya wrote: post #11

One thing that is not stressed enough, is Rails enforces good code patterns early on. If you follow the docs, you will know where model code should be, helpers should be, controllers should be. After all, it is an MVC framework. However, modern day JS frameworks don't care about this at all. Most of them love flaunting about their raw performance numbers. Security? Fuck that. Not even basic form CSRF protection. A lo…

Eh, there's NestJs and AdonisJs if you want opinionated MVC with lots of built-ins like CSRF and ORMs.

But you can also pick tight packages that do one thing well. Something like oRPC + Drizzle that lets you pipe data from your database to frontend with full typing and cross-boundary go-to-definition while covering most of what Nest and Adonis do with better focused APIs.

And in terms of security, I'll take Typescript with a strong compiler config anyday. For example, I disable: `any`, non-null asserts (no `!`), floating promises without `void` for explicitness, no unnecessary conditions, and a bunch of other strict rules. I also use Branded Types liberally. All of that makes logical errors that can become app-specific security issues (and are thus less readily detected) much less likely to happen. And as a bonus you get really reliable code too.

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#54

Post by f311a »

sebra wrote: post #48
f311a wrote: post #37

I love the batteries that RoR or Django gives you, but then I also remember how much time it takes to maintain old projects. Updating a project that was started 5-6 years ago takes a lot of time. Part of that is managing dependencies. For Django, they can easily go above 100. Some of them have to be compiled with specific versions of system libraries. Even Docker does not save you from a lot of problems. Right now, I…

I'm working on a large (at least 300k+ loc) Django code base right now and we have 32 direct dependencies. Mostly stuff like lxml, pillow and pandas. It's very easy to use all the nice Django libs out there but you don't have to.

I was talking about total deps, not direct. By installing something like Celery, you get 8-10 extra dependencies that, in turn, can also have extra deps. And yeah, extra deps can conflict with each other as well.

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#55

Post by imafish »

shafyy wrote: post #2

The main line on the Rails website now reads: > Accelerate your agents with convention over configuration. Ruby on Rails scales from PROMPT to IPO. Token-efficient code that's easy for agents to write and beautiful for humans to review And I fucking hate it. If I read this the first time I would think this is some kind of tool to optimize your LLM agents. I have been using Rails for over a decade now and always liked…

That is just DHH (/37signals) being expert(s) at positioning.

Trying to answer the question of, why is language and framework still relevant in a world where almost everyone uses an agent for coding?

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#56

Post by comboy »

vintagedave wrote: post #39
f311a wrote: post #37

I love the batteries that RoR or Django gives you, but then I also remember how much time it takes to maintain old projects. Updating a project that was started 5-6 years ago takes a lot of time. Part of that is managing dependencies. For Django, they can easily go above 100. Some of them have to be compiled with specific versions of system libraries. Even Docker does not save you from a lot of problems. Right now, I…

Sometimes I think the issue here is churn . Security fixes aside, what is it that updated dependencies really give? Can't some of these projects just... stop?

I agree, but let's say you are looking for a library to solve your problem - you see one repo updated 2 weeks ago and the other one updated 5 years ago - which one do you choose?

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#57

Post by fpauser »

louiskottmann wrote: post #35

I've been a Rails DevOps and nowadays a web one-man-show with it for over 10 years and I'd do it again. Not many frameworks have been thriving that long, and there's good reason. It packs everything, is tidy and productive, with a pleasant language to read and write. In the latest Stackoverflow survey, it's back at the "top 5 of desired stacks to use for next project" over a decade after its inception ! Give it a try…

rails = ruby = oo/mutable && slow && resource hungry

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#58

Post by louiskottmann »

f311a wrote: post #54
sebra wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm working on a large (at least 300k+ loc) Django code base right now and we have 32 direct dependencies. Mostly stuff like lxml, pillow and pandas. It's very easy to use all the nice Django libs out there but you don't have to.

I was talking about total deps, not direct. By installing something like Celery, you get 8-10 extra dependencies that, in turn, can also have extra deps. And yeah, extra deps can conflict with each other as well.

I find the thought daunting but the reality surprisingly easy.

You just keep up as you go, as long as you keep things close to the framework it's fine.

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#59

Post by Lukas_Skywalker »

BeefySwain wrote: post #41
f311a wrote: post #37

I love the batteries that RoR or Django gives you, but then I also remember how much time it takes to maintain old projects. Updating a project that was started 5-6 years ago takes a lot of time. Part of that is managing dependencies. For Django, they can easily go above 100. Some of them have to be compiled with specific versions of system libraries. Even Docker does not save you from a lot of problems. Right now, I…

Does batteries included somehow result in upgrading years old projects being a larger lift? I would think the opposite.

I also think it's the opposite, since the dependencies are almost guaranteed to be compatible with each other. And I think Ruby libraries in particular are usually quite stable and maintained for a long time.

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#60

Post by wiseowise »

axelthegerman wrote: post #50
louiskottmann wrote: post #35

I've been a Rails DevOps and nowadays a web one-man-show with it for over 10 years and I'd do it again. Not many frameworks have been thriving that long, and there's good reason. It packs everything, is tidy and productive, with a pleasant language to read and write. In the latest Stackoverflow survey, it's back at the "top 5 of desired stacks to use for next project" over a decade after its inception ! Give it a try…

And most folks getting stuff done with Rails ain't be filling out surveys to boost their stack - or maybe that's just me. So everyone just stop worrying what everyone else thinks or seems to think and just use the right tools for you and get on with it

There are two types of devs: those that ship and those that fill out surveys (and not because their stacks are so much more efficient that they have time to fill out the surveys)
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