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Returning to Rails in 2026

markround.com

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Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#21

Post by apsurd »

slopinthebag wrote: post #14
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…

Javascript frameworks just do SSR + Express-style api routes. They don't handle SQL injection prevention because they don't deal with databases at all. CSRF prevention is less important in todays world tho.

it's like you're saying SQL injection happens if you're running sql on the client so if it's on the server you're fine.

that's not how it works. and i'm fairly sure most all apps deal with databases, unless they're explicitly static pages.

edit: sql injection is about hacking the parameters used in a query. they almost always in some way come from external sources, user input. so they have to be sanitized. it sounds straightforward but bounties are paid all the time on hackerone with documented cases of injection. people are very clever.

i've had to patch some verified cases where the hacker used the name field to pass code in and alter links in emails to make it look like they came from our (household name) company.

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#22

Post by vidarh »

gfody wrote: post #13
hamandcheese wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what's the difference if my agent uses fucking Next, Nuxt, Rails or Django? The claim seems quite clear to me: "convention over configuration allows coding agents to be more effective". But yes, I do agree that the main line should say what Ruby on Rails actually is, not why it's good for your agent.

doesn’t forcing your agent to think in ruby put it at huge disadvantage though? since the language isn’t that popular it can’t have learned it as well as say python or Java?

The frontier models all handle Ruby just fine. So does th cheap Chinese models like Mini, Qwen, Deepseek.

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#23

Post by mark_round »

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…

Author of the article here (hi! Anxiously watching my Grafana stack right now...)

I've only just noticed that on the Rails homepage, and while I acknowledge everyone's chasing that sweet sweet AI hype, I gotta say that's... disappointing[1]. The reason I fell in love with Ruby (and by extension, Rails) is because it enabled me as a human to express myself through code. Not to become a glorified janitor for a LLM.

[1]=Well, I had a stronger response initially but I toned it down a bit for here...

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#25

Post by dewey »

rdevilla wrote: post #20
XYen0n wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I now also believe that at least Active Record is much easier to use than Django's ORM

Doesn't matter when devs just slop out 400 lines of SQL and bypass the ORM. Frameworks and structure will save you from neither stupidity nor ignorance.

That has always been the case, why would it be different now? Easy to flag and spot in code review.

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#26

Post by kugelblitz »

ramon156 wrote: post #5

I had a project I already tried out in Symfony and then full typescript, both a normal REST setup and ORPC. They all felt like - at scale - they became messy and I was unsure where goes what. I gave RoR a try last year, and so far I'm at the same level I was with the other projects but I actually enjoy programming the project after the PoC phase. Maybe because third time's a charm? Maybe because I know what I need to…

I usually go full Symfony with my projects until I need to spread it out. But even for interactivity, I first go for htmx and Alpine.js instead of full React or so, where I then need to setup API on backend and frontend.

I think once you're deep into a project, you of course know the features needed and the constraints and you'll be more efficient the next time around.

I think the challenge is to keep working on your old legacy projects.

Plus Symfony is quite flexible on how you want to organize your code. Modular monolith, monolith, DDD, microservices, "junior developer just setting up controllers and entities".

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#27

Post by dewey »

Great post, this has also been my experience in the past 2 years. Rails is just a lot of fun, and that’s especially important for side projects.

I’m usually a Go person and love it, but building simple crud routes is not the fun part of it.

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#28

Post by rdevilla »

dewey wrote: post #25
rdevilla wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter when devs just slop out 400 lines of SQL and bypass the ORM. Frameworks and structure will save you from neither stupidity nor ignorance.

That has always been the case, why would it be different now? Easy to flag and spot in code review.

Boy, I sure wish I had the opportunity to review codebases before inheriting them for maintenance...

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#29

Post by Zanfa »

stephenr wrote: post #9
Zanfa wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 This is so painful... I can't help but wonder who they're trying to target with such inane slogans. Rails is amazing, but "token-efficiency" is not on the list of reasons why.

> This is so painful... I can't help but wonder who they're trying to target with such inane slogans. The people who think that spicy autocomplete actually has an understanding of the slop it's churning out for them.

Those people don't choose frameworks. It'll be chosen for them by some LLM and given the prevalence of JS, it'll likely be some flavor of React.

Re: Returning to Rails in 2026

#30

Post by Kerrick »

fy20 wrote: post #8
hamandcheese wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what's the difference if my agent uses fucking Next, Nuxt, Rails or Django? The claim seems quite clear to me: "convention over configuration allows coding agents to be more effective". But yes, I do agree that the main line should say what Ruby on Rails actually is, not why it's good for your agent.

There was a post last week about the best programming language for LLMs, and in the comments people loved Go, with the claim being it's very opinionated and there's really only one way of doing things. I'd say the same is mostly true for Rails apps as well. However having worked with Typescript for 8 years now... I'm not sure I could go back to Ruby without types. For LLMs thats important as well, the more guard rail…

Ruby has types with RBS and Steep now. It's a lot like using .d.ts sidecar files alongside JavaScript, via jsconfig.json configuring tsc. I like it a lot!
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