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Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

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Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#311

Post by wastedhours »

lmm wrote: post #271
wastedhours wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's inevitably where you're going to end up If the project's successful . The chance that most of what we're building with Rails hits the required escape velocity to require something other than Rails is a "Nice Problem". For the vast majority of things people are building for the web, "CRUD+Auth+Billing" is all that's needed, maybe with a few API hooks into something more novel running on different infra. If you…

> If the project's successful. The chance that most of what we're building with Rails hits the required escape velocity to require something other than Rails is a "Nice Problem". > For the vast majority of things people are building for the web, "CRUD+Auth+Billing" is all that's needed, maybe with a few API hooks into something more novel running on different infra. > If you then need it, then you can just build out…

Rails can take you much further than MVP though, as evidenced by all of the companies that reach breaking point with it. Basecamp, Github, Shopify - all reached proper business status on Rails (arguably Twitter too, although business is a bit of a stretch...).

We can argue it from both ends, but I see Rails as the middle ground, and allows you to go from MVP to $XXm ARR on the same stack. A hacky MVP with 30 npm packages doesn't have a clear path up the tree to grow without serious changes, and a custom architecture is useless if you don't get any users.

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#312

Post by scns »

joelbluminator wrote: post #103
IMTDb wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about ruby and python but in JS there a significant number of projects that aim at adding a type system on top of the launguage

I don't think it's such a huge trend, if it was Python wouldn't be one of the top 3 most popular languages in the world. Yes, there is typescript for Angular. Outside of that how often is it used? Pure JS is still used tons.

It may not be a "huge trend", but those investing into static typing reap the rewads. Facebook rewrote messenger in ReasoML, bugs reported by users went from hundreds a year to less then ten. Fearless refactoring is another plus, the compiler will find everything you need to change to make the program run correctly.

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#313

Post by h1d »

onion2k wrote: post #181
ryanbrunner wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These days if your chosen language doesn't have things like strong typing, interfaces, good debugging tools, a good compiler, etc, then you should definitely be asking yourself if it's the right tool for the job. All of these things existed long before Ruby on Rails gained in popularity. Unless the popularity of Rails, Python, PHP, and Javascript was all just collective insanity, dynamic languages do offer benefits…

Unless the popularity of Rails, Python, PHP, and Javascript was all just collective insanity, dynamic languages do offer benefits in some circumstances over languages with stronger type guarantees. The benefit they offer is fewer checks so you can deploy things faster. It's the same benefit you can get if you take your car to a mechanic who doesn't bother to check the wheels are attached properly after they've change…

Funny when it comes to semaphores in software industry, it's harder to understand than just trying to understand it as is.

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#314

Post by M_Bakhtiari »

angersock wrote: post #270
M_Bakhtiari wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elixir is compiled, the other two are interpreted. How can a language be intrinsically compiled or interpreted? Sure, Befunge is one example of a language that's notoriously hard to build a compiler for but easy to build an interpreter for, but surely that can't be said for Ruby and JavaScript. V8 is a good counter-example to the claim that JavaScript has to be interpreted.

> How can a language be intrinsically compiled or interpreted? This is a great example of an academic nondistinction that is completely worthless in practical matters.

It is highly relevant because we in industry are the ones who actually have to work with and scale all these needlessly slow piece of shit language implementations. Implementations that get a pass because nobody can be bothered to have this conversation. Languages that are dynamic or good for scripting, rapid prototyping or whatever the hook is do not need to be implemented using slow and inefficient techniques and shouldn't get a pass for it. Similarly terrible languages shouldn't get a pass for being terrible just because they happen to have fast implementations.

It's precisely in academia where it is a worthless nondistinction, there a language doesn't even need to be implemented to be studied. For instance lambda calculus predates the programmable computer.

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#315

Post by scns »

wolco wrote: post #250
psychometry wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because even in 2018 PHP is still PHP?

What does PHP mean to you? What are your personal views? From a language perspective it's stable, fast, easy to deploy. Why wouldn't you choose to use it? For most it's not a difficult language to learn and start using.

PHP makes it really easy to write insecure software, because the first googleresult is often outdated and hacked in a short time by automated scripts.

The defaults of functions/methods in the standard library are often insecure.

if you want to write good PHP i can recommend following resources: https://paragonie.com/software Would use their stuff if i wrote PHP https://www.phptherightway.com https://phpdelusions.net even though the name sounds abrasive it is a good resource on dbaccess if you want to know specifics. It is from a guy with several SO gold badges.

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#316

Post by M_Bakhtiari »

regularfry wrote: post #193
M_Bakhtiari wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elixir is compiled, the other two are interpreted. How can a language be intrinsically compiled or interpreted? Sure, Befunge is one example of a language that's notoriously hard to build a compiler for but easy to build an interpreter for, but surely that can't be said for Ruby and JavaScript. V8 is a good counter-example to the claim that JavaScript has to be interpreted.

In context, it's entirely reasonable to assume an implicit "the only realistic implementation of X to choose for production work"

And V8 isn't a realistic implementation of JavaScript for production work?

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#317

Post by fergie »

prrrnd wrote: post #153
fergie wrote: post #131

Rails really nailed the problems of web development as it was 10 years ago by (rightly) pointing out that 97.2% of web projects were all about making an application server talk nicely to a relational database and then generating a front end that reflected the data model and that had javascript that Just Worked (everywhere). Web dev is in a different place now. Developers don't generally install and maintain applicati…

> Just the idea that a Danish web consultant could hack together something that became popular and which then allowed him to literally retire and become a racing driver before he hit 30 should inspire us all. While being successful in all those aspects, DHH is still very active in the development of the framework. He is currently also the CTO at Basecamp. Not really what I would consider being retired.

I have a vague memory of reading an article by him shortly after he got the investment from Jeff Bezos when he spoke in terms of being "retired" (sadly ungoogleable now because "david heinmeyer hansson retired" just gives lots of hits for motor-racing). Of course things change, and he is definitely working now, although his working life seems to consist of very well paid, powerful, interesting and part-time positions, so I think the point stands :)

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#318

Post by detaro »

angersock wrote: post #32
RhodesianHunter wrote: post #2

> 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?

Javascript, Ruby, and Elixir are emphatically not interchangeable. Elixir is compiled, the other two are interpreted. JS is supported natively by all browsers and is at its core an event-driven functional language, the other two are not. Ruby is probably the comfiest OOP language out there, and certainly the one with the best standard library. These are not the same languages.

What's the critical difference between BEAM bytecode and Ruby bytecode? It's IMHO not a very important distinction if the compilation happens ahead of time or when the program is started, but maybe that's not what you're talking about? I'm not really familiar with the internals of these two.

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#319

Post by bdcravens »

nurettin wrote: post #305
bdcravens wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So as long as you are doing Joe's textile website, it is the right tool. I don't think Rails is the best tool for that. A static site or Wordpress are probably a better fit. > Cloud scaling rails can be expensive, as apparent from horror stories [0] but a few manually managed instances with a load balancer and good web servers can go a long way. It definitely can be, but I think most apps people are working on don'…

I think there is more to textile than displaying and selling clothes. But, YMMV.

Sure, but much of that process isn't customer facing. I tend to draw inferences when I read "website" as opposed to "web application".

Re: Is Rails still relevant in 2018?

#320

Post by dig1 »

atomic-hedge wrote: post #264
bsenftner wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's just be honest: today's dev's can't write in C/C++ because they don't have the formal training. They are primarily script language devs who can't work at the low level required by C/C++. The formally educated programmers who were taught low level large-scale systems programming are too few to create the programmer farms you all work it (which I left for scientific software development, where the devs are older…

I'm very interested in leaving the dev farms for something more interesting. I'm taking steps in that direction, but do you have any advice on how you escaped into scientific software dev?

Not OP, but worked in science before. What you want is not to work in science on software dev ;) Scientists usually write extremely ugly, messy code, just to make it working and finalize paper for publishing. Remember, their focus is paper not code nor properly workable program.

Things like testing, agile, tickets, code indentation, patterns - none of that you'll find there.

If you aim for serious environments like Wolfram Research or MathWorks, that could be different. If you aim for quantitative firms, usually you'll find there scientists writing prototype in mathematica/matlab/r/python (messy again) and devs who will re-write it in c/c++/java/asm.

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