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Returning to Rails in 2026

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Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#101

Post by marceldegraaf »

MrWiffles wrote: post #99
marceldegraaf wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but I made the move from Ruby/Rails to Elixir years ago, so I'll try to answer from my perspective. Elixir is a functional programming language based on the "BEAM", the Erlang VM. We'll get back to the BEAM in a moment, but first: the functional programming aspect. That definitely took getting used to. I remember being _very_ confused in the first few weeks. Not because of the syntax (Elixir is quite Ruby-esq…

Something I never quite understood: differentiate between BEAM process and operating system process. The OS has launched one (in theory) BEAM Erlang VM runtime process with N threads; are we saying “process” here to try to emulate the OS process model internally within the BEAM OS process, when really we’re talking about threads? Or a mix of threads and other processes? I’m imagining the latter even cross network, bu…

A BEAM process is not an OS thread. The way I understand it, a BEAM process is just a very small memory space with its own heap/stack, and a message system for communication between BEAM processes.

The BEAM itself runs multiple OS threads (it can use all cores of the CPU if so desired), and the BEAM scheduler gives chunks of processing time to each BEAM process.

This gives you parallel processing out of the box, and because of the networking capabilities of the BEAM, also allows you to scale out over multiple machines in a way that's transparent to BEAM processes.

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#102

Post by andrewstuart »

Remember only one programming language delivers developer joy - Ruby.

No other programming language brings developer joy because……. errrr because ……. Well because we are just super certain and confident, that’s why! Oh and DHH said so.

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#104

Post by neomindryan »

We've been running Rails apps in production continuously since 2007. If you treat software as anything other than completely disposable, it's been a no-brainer for the entire 19+ years I've been paying attention (not despite its age, but because of it).

The premise that you get meaningful efficiencies from JavaScript on the back-end just because you have to use it on the front-end has been pretty thoroughly debunked at this point. Instead you mostly get a larger blast radius when the front-end ecosystem has its monthly identity crisis. OP's "stacks-du-jour" and programming language "flavour of the month" framing is exactly right. A shocking amount of web software architecture is just following fashion trends dressed up as technical decision-making.

Most of the churn in tech stack isn't driven by engineering requirements, it's driven by résumé optimization and Hacker News anxiety. Rails has quietly been powering serious businesses the whole time. Does anyone think NPM's 3.1 million packages enable more functionality than RubyGems' 190,000 packages?

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#105

Post by e12e »

paozac wrote: post #10

I love rails and the recent improvements are great. I have the impression, though, that these days it only appeals to those who picked it up before version 3 or 4, when it was smaller, maybe more understandable, and incredibly better than all the competing frameworks (except Django maybe). If your first contact with rails is version 7+ and you’re only comfortable with JS/TS, then you’re not going to get it and might…

I'd say that if you're first encounter with rails is version 8+ -- it's a lot easier to use than previous versions.

Partly because the handling of JavaScript is much less bespoke and complex.

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#106

Post by nurettin »

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…

It used to take at least a day of work. In a post-2025/11 world, it is under an hour. Maybe even 15 minutes if you've landed on a high quality LLM session.

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#107

Post by e12e »

jeppester wrote: post #84
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…

Give AdonisJS a try, it's pretty much the JS sibling of Laravel and RoR.

Adonis is nice, but still young and lacking features. And in my experience very verbose compared to rails.

That said, absolutely worth a look.

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#108

Post by chrisweekly »

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?

"Security fixes aside" is too dismissive. Transitive dependencies with real CVEs can feel like the tail wagging the dog, but ignore them at your peril.

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#109

Post by pushcx »

sarchertech wrote: post #98
etothet wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over TWO decades! Rails has been around since 2004, making it just slightly younger than Django. edit: Django was release in 2005

Rails is definitely older than Django. Django wasn’t released publicly until 2005. Django had private use before then, but rails was also in private use before it was released.

Rails's public release was July 2004: https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-rails-0-5-0-the-end-of-vaporware/...

Django's was July 2005: https://www.djangoproject.com/weblog/2005/jul/15/chipy/

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#110

Post by sensanaty »

I love Rails, but after working for a few places with huge Rails codebases and then several other places with .NET and other frameworks with actual typing, I just can't go back to Rails for anything that isn't a personal project.

Working with a large codebase with an untyped codebase is just a nightmare, even with powerful IDEs like RubyMine that are able to cover some of the paint points. I wonder how good Sorbet is these days, though, especially the RoR experience

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