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Choosing Ruby on Rails for web development project in 2019

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Re: Choosing Ruby on Rails for web development project in 2019

#11

Post by zerkten »

munmaek wrote: post #3

The beauty of rails is how simple and quick it is to get a robust (if bare) application up and running. Even if you use sinatra or padrino instead, the wealth of the web community built around ruby still makes it rather easy. If I were a tech lead and had to make a choice now, in 2019, I would still (probably) choose rails-api for a backend with some separate frontend. I've been slowly working on a backend for a web…

> I've been slowly working on a backend for a web app in Rust

I'm interested in why you made the choice to use Rust for a web app? It feels like you love a good challenge, but there are obviously technical constraints for some apps. I look around and wonder if the options have really changed a whole lot since 2006?

If you need productivity, choose Ruby or Python (or maybe JS.) Java and .NET exist if you have more exacting performance requirements (these platforms are somewhat more pleasant in 2019 and I see Go as joining their ranks.) Or, you choose to go really low-level with C/C++, or perhaps Rust in 2019. The latter never seemed like a viable option unless you had extreme performance concerns.

Re: Choosing Ruby on Rails for web development project in 2019

#12

Post by yebyen »

lkostrowski wrote: post #8
sbov wrote: post #6

> Great for CPU-intensive tasks. Ruby is among the slowest languages out there. Which is fine for most webapps, but calling it great for CPU intensive tasks... I don't understand what logic is being used to come to this conclusion.

I think it's only in comparision to php, python etc.

Ruby 3x3 is a thing (make Ruby 3.0, 3x faster), and Ruby 2.6 is said to include an optional JIT compilation mode.

I haven't seen any benchmarks or analysis that say JIT is ready for production use, but indications are strong that the next version of Ruby will include a lot of surprising things, like maybe a type system?

Ruby got a reputation for being slow very early on, and my understanding is a lot of that was due to slow code in Rails (version 2 and/or 3?). Rails is a lot better now. Ruby continues to evolve. Still, I don't know how many Ruby developers have chosen it for reasons owing to CPU-intensive work. This does seem like a stretch, even if we are beating Python in some benchmarks.

Re: Choosing Ruby on Rails for web development project in 2019

#13

Post by zerkten »

throwayEngineer wrote: post #7

This looks like an SEO grab. Lots of key words all over the page. Did anyone find anything useful? Some basic programming language advice... Is this an HN Affiliate?

For consulting companies who have to educate their customer base on why they should go with Rails this is a well put together microsite.

Re: Choosing Ruby on Rails for web development project in 2019

#14

Post by oftenwrong »

Rails is ideal for the "Get Shit Done" approach to development. However, Ruby's type system does not provide many assurances, making mature codebases harder to maintain, refactor, and extend (as compared to codebases in, say, well-written Java). I am surprised this was not listed as one of the criticisms. Sorbet, a type checker for Ruby, stands to make this criticism less valid: https://sorbet.org/

Re: Choosing Ruby on Rails for web development project in 2019

#16

Post by kadabra9 »

I used to do a lot of work in Rails in around 2012-2014. Around 2015 or so I sort of pivoted out of web development and more into data engineering, so I took a bit of a hiatus from making side projects/web apps. When I revisited Rails years later, it seemed like so much had changed with all of the new versions and updates that it seemed like overkill, I just shrugged and ended up using Sinatra instead.

Is there a good resource out there for someone who used Rails 2.x / 3 a lot years ago to get caught up to speed on what they need to know to get up and running with the new(er) versions?

Re: Choosing Ruby on Rails for web development project in 2019

#17

Post by faizshah »

yebyen wrote: post #12
lkostrowski wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's only in comparision to php, python etc.

Ruby 3x3 is a thing (make Ruby 3.0, 3x faster), and Ruby 2.6 is said to include an optional JIT compilation mode. I haven't seen any benchmarks or analysis that say JIT is ready for production use, but indications are strong that the next version of Ruby will include a lot of surprising things, like maybe a type system? Ruby got a reputation for being slow very early on, and my understanding is a lot of that was due…

I was listening to a recent interview with DHH and he makes a great point that Rails and Ruby are about optimizing for developer happiness and dev speed. Computing power keeps becoming cheaper and ruby keeps getting faster but developer's salaries continue to be the number one cost for software companies.

Re: Choosing Ruby on Rails for web development project in 2019

#18

Post by throwayEngineer »

zerkten wrote: post #13
throwayEngineer wrote: post #7

This looks like an SEO grab. Lots of key words all over the page. Did anyone find anything useful? Some basic programming language advice... Is this an HN Affiliate?

For consulting companies who have to educate their customer base on why they should go with Rails this is a well put together microsite.

So, this is exactly an SEO grab.

Anyone on HN find anything useful?

Re: Choosing Ruby on Rails for web development project in 2019

#19

Post by faizshah »

kadabra9 wrote: post #16

I used to do a lot of work in Rails in around 2012-2014. Around 2015 or so I sort of pivoted out of web development and more into data engineering, so I took a bit of a hiatus from making side projects/web apps. When I revisited Rails years later, it seemed like so much had changed with all of the new versions and updates that it seemed like overkill, I just shrugged and ended up using Sinatra instead. Is there a goo…

I've been using Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial and Agile Web Development with Rails 5 by Sam Ruby. I had much less experience with Rails 3 than you so you might find it redundant but those have been the two best for me.

Re: Choosing Ruby on Rails for web development project in 2019

#20

Post by throwaway_x13zd »

Devise[1] alone makes it worth using rails for many webapps. Throw in things like simple form[2] and will paginate[3] and it's incredible how much you can get done cleanly and quickly. Using something like intercooler.js, you can build a solid modern web app in a fraction of the complexity of most systems today.

1 - https://github.com/plataformatec/devise

2 - https://github.com/plataformatec/simple_form

3 - https://github.com/mislav/will_paginate

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