Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

> I would keep learning plain Ruby, Elixir, Phoenix and JavaScript as my side tools

> I wouldn’t spend too much time learning programming languages outside that list as you need more tools in your toolbox but too many tools may get your toolbox cluttered

You suggest not cluttering your toolbox, but your recommendation is a list of completely interchangeable dynamic languages?

I commented a few months ago that if I was starting a new company today I’d use Rails without hesitation. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17355776

Well, I’m starting a company and our current prototype is Rails. I don’t regret my decision at all, although after spending the last four years writing exclusively Python it’s been a little jarring. The muscle memory is still there though and after two weeks I’m almost back to 100%.

I really missed Active Record and all of the conveniences there around migrations. When you’re prototyping and constantly evolving your data model - but still intend to throw real traffic at it - flexibility here with the hardened foundation of PostgreSQL is vital.

The framework and language aren’t red hot anymore but they are far from dead or even stagnant. There’s a tremendous amount of active development happening in Rails.

Meanwhile I’ve been learning Elixir via a course called “Elixir for Programmers” and love it a lot. I didn’t want to risk building things on Phoenix at this stage. It’s full featured and likely more than capable but the smaller ecosystem and it being a first production app for me wasn’t worth the risk. I’m dying to put the actor model and OTP to work in an environment where it would really shine.

Anyway... still loving Rails and Ruby! A lot! With SASS, Haml, rake tasks, lots of data fixture tools etc... and no BS with React and webpack, slow pipelines and maintaining two codebases for an API and a Frontend... you’re left with lots of functionality being built daily. It’s great.

Don’t get me wrong, React is awesome and it’s certainly the new foundation of UI development. But... the ecosystem is still learning to walk imho. Redux isn’t the answer. GraphQL is great on paper but the way people use it is not ideal (coupling data to ui). Long way to go before I’d go 100% JS.

This reminds me to book a ticket to rubyconf.

Almost every, and probably every, language that has been used for serious production is relevant in 2018. COBOL is still one of the most important languages in the belly of a lot of financial and public software.

You wouldn’t build something new on cobol if you could avoid it of course, but rails is not cobol. Ruby and rails are still good at getting things out the door.

I wouldn’t personally touch it, but that’s because I’ve never heard about anyone using it in my country. If you live in a place where a lot of shops use ruby and rails, then why not?

Changing tech isn’t easy, so you should only do it if you’re motivated. We’ve been doing more and more JS/Node where I work because it’s really good at getting things done quickly, sort of similar to why you’d chose ruby and rails. However I’ve been a C# developer for years, and I’m nowhere near as good in the JS environment as I am in .Net. I’ll get there eventually of course, but I probably wouldn’t without the internal motivation of actually enjoying the change, partly because JS is so great at getting things done.

The key questions to me when chosing a language would be, do I really want to learn it? Why do I want to learn it? And also, is anyone in my area hiring for it?.

I struggle with how to say "both Ruby and Rails are poor technology choices" without sounding ranty. I have seen nothing good come from the flexibility and non-portable conventions of these tools. I have seen so much nicer web stack designs than Rails, with none of the problems. Maybe if you're building a Basecamp type site - slow / speed doesn't matter, limited views / minimal front end functionality, small surface area, trickle of users - maybe you won't notice the downsides.

Man these language debates are so irrelevant when you're talking about web apps. I honestly couldn't give a shit what I use, it takes like 2 weeks max to adjust to a new framework/language.

Most people I know and work with feel similarly...and it's not some amateur speaking here.