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Upgrading Airbnb from Rails 2.3 to Rails 3.0

nerds.airbnb.com

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Re: Upgrading Airbnb from Rails 2.3 to Rails 3.0

#21

Post by jamongkad »

abscondment wrote: post #20
gkop wrote: post #4

I like that you broke out and completed preparatory steps ahead of actually upgrading Rails, but the blog post points out some process smells. Title Upgrading Airbnb from Rails 2.3 to Rails 3.0 Date January 4, 2012 Why are you blogging about upgrading to Rails 3.0.x when the current stable Rails has been 3.1.x for over 4 months? > Our app was running Rails 2.3.8 at the time, and the production instances were a mess.…

> Also, shouldn't these simple bugs be quickly and fully discovered by automated tests? Do you actually believe this? Tests are a nice first pass, but they'll never fully discover every bug -- especially with a huge change like this.

Exactly as painful as it might seem. Automated tests can only get you so far. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and dig into the code base.

Re: Upgrading Airbnb from Rails 2.3 to Rails 3.0

#22

Post by kingnothing »

ahhrrr wrote: post #18

I'm just as interested in knowing what happened after the upgrade. How's performance on 2.3 vs. 3.0? Are there plans to upgrade to 3.1 anytime soon? Has using 3.0 increased developer or ops productivity in any measurable way?

Assuming they were already running Ruby 1.9.x, they probably saw a smallish increase in response times moving from 2.3 to 3.0. I've seen that on two separate, large projects.

There is a drastic decrease in response times with switching from 1.8.7 MRI or 1.8.7 REE to 1.9.x MRI.

Re: Upgrading Airbnb from Rails 2.3 to Rails 3.0

#24

Post by derwiki »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #16

An amazing feat seeing that airbnb doesn't employ any programmers (I know that because the interface bugs I reported as a paying customer were handled by the PR department or simply ignored).

Sometimes at a startup you just don't have the resources to do everything. Upgrading to Rails 3 pays down their technical debt substantially and will help prevent interface bugs like the ones you encountered in the future.

Re: Upgrading Airbnb from Rails 2.3 to Rails 3.0

#25

Post by rmccue »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #17
smackfu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If timezones aren't good enough to display the time, what good are they? If Mexico is calling PST/PDT a different time than everyone else, shouldn't they be using new values instead?

The timezone names most countries use are not unique or entirely stable as time goes by. E.g., America and Australia disagree about what "Eastern Standard Time" means. That's why the Olson/Eggert database names zones for major cities, those are most stable and well known. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones

> America and Australia disagree about what "Eastern Standard Time" mean

EST = Eastern Standard Time (East US)

AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time (East Aus)

Occasionally we use "EST" as a shortened form of "AEST", but it's rare.

Re: Upgrading Airbnb from Rails 2.3 to Rails 3.0

#26

Post by philwelch »

gkop wrote: post #4

I like that you broke out and completed preparatory steps ahead of actually upgrading Rails, but the blog post points out some process smells. Title Upgrading Airbnb from Rails 2.3 to Rails 3.0 Date January 4, 2012 Why are you blogging about upgrading to Rails 3.0.x when the current stable Rails has been 3.1.x for over 4 months? > Our app was running Rails 2.3.8 at the time, and the production instances were a mess.…

Furthermore:

> Clone the rails3 branch into a separate directory from the usual working directory (instead of simply switching branches)

What does this accomplish?

Re: Upgrading Airbnb from Rails 2.3 to Rails 3.0

#27

Post by stefantalpalaru »

derwiki wrote: post #24
stefantalpalaru wrote: post #16

An amazing feat seeing that airbnb doesn't employ any programmers (I know that because the interface bugs I reported as a paying customer were handled by the PR department or simply ignored).

Sometimes at a startup you just don't have the resources to do everything. Upgrading to Rails 3 pays down their technical debt substantially and will help prevent interface bugs like the ones you encountered in the future.

This particular startup had VC money flooding them from all directions. The bugs are still there. One involves credit card access between users, the rest are trivial (the stuff you'd let a junior programmer handle). Upgrading to Rails 3 doesn't magically solve anything.

Re: Upgrading Airbnb from Rails 2.3 to Rails 3.0

#28

Post by barrym »

philwelch wrote: post #26
gkop wrote: post #4

I like that you broke out and completed preparatory steps ahead of actually upgrading Rails, but the blog post points out some process smells. Title Upgrading Airbnb from Rails 2.3 to Rails 3.0 Date January 4, 2012 Why are you blogging about upgrading to Rails 3.0.x when the current stable Rails has been 3.1.x for over 4 months? > Our app was running Rails 2.3.8 at the time, and the production instances were a mess.…

Furthermore: > Clone the rails3 branch into a separate directory from the usual working directory (instead of simply switching branches) What does this accomplish?

When I've done similar upgrades, I've often found it quicker to have the previous code available to me in another checked out repo rather than switch branches and have to deal with any possible uncommitted changes issues.

Re: Upgrading Airbnb from Rails 2.3 to Rails 3.0

#29

Post by philwelch »

barrym wrote: post #28
philwelch wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore: > Clone the rails3 branch into a separate directory from the usual working directory (instead of simply switching branches) What does this accomplish?

When I've done similar upgrades, I've often found it quicker to have the previous code available to me in another checked out repo rather than switch branches and have to deal with any possible uncommitted changes issues.

You can also use git stash for that.
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