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Rails is better low code than low code

radanskoric.com

91–100 of 249 posts

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#91

Low code initially works quite well until you hit the limits of the low-code framework. If you just need a throw-away proof of concept, or a personal utility, or the like, low-code solutions can be quite efficient. However, implementing anything significant that's expected to be extended and improved, particularly when there are users that request changes, improvements and new features, low-code "is like climbing a t…

One of the perks of Rails is that Ruby itself makes it more compelling. When you need to get to something that the framework doesn’t expose, Ruby makes it easy to get to it without having to rewrite the framework, extend a class and replace it in multiple places or fork it just to use your modification. This applies to the entire gem ecosystem too. Over the years this ability has saved me numerous headaches with only…

Ruby is my least favorite part of Rails by far. The lack of type checking makes every single gem and rails update extremely dangerous in ways that are incredibly difficult to predict.

For example the redis gem updated to return an int from exists() instead of a bool like it did before. This doesn’t raise any exceptions because all ints work in if statements. They just always return true. Silently breaking all of the code using it. You can read all of the change logs and search your own code base, but will constantly run in to situations where another gems code is using the method that just changed.

As well as the fact that almost every method has one param “options” where the available options are never listed in the documentation and are impossible to find without reading the source code.

Rails itself I quite like for being an all inclusive framework that just works out of the box, but untyped languages should be avoided at all costs these days when we have much better options like typescript.

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#93

I never understood the "low code" microbubble that was being inflated. We went through that era already. We called them RAD tools, and they targeted the same sort of strange, mythical end user profile. Someone so technically capable and apt that they could navigate a dizzying domain of deeply buried checkboxes, property fields, and sprawling relationships & side-effects, but who was also simultaneously unable to unde…

Low code tooling is alive and well in the entertainment industry. Node graphs are becoming very popular in game engines, shaders, procedural modeling software etc.

The king of low-code, spreadsheets, are still quite popular as well.

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#94
post #8

It would be nice to get a brief definition of "low code." Otherwise great article. I've found myself using "low code" frameworks when they setup my environment for me and can generate the code files. Key example was a Minecraft mod maker. Within a minute I was fed up with the scratch style programming, but it had all the Java build stuff ready for me to just edit the files myself. No setting up gradle or anything.

Generally these are the drag & drop visual editors like Microsoft Power Apps and the like. Like the article said, my experience is that they're Great!™ until they're not, at which point you're painted into a corner.

And not much mention of how you do releases and version control with low-code.

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the perks of Rails is that Ruby itself makes it more compelling. When you need to get to something that the framework doesn’t expose, Ruby makes it easy to get to it without having to rewrite the framework, extend a class and replace it in multiple places or fork it just to use your modification. This applies to the entire gem ecosystem too. Over the years this ability has saved me numerous headaches with only…

Ruby is my least favorite part of Rails by far. The lack of type checking makes every single gem and rails update extremely dangerous in ways that are incredibly difficult to predict. For example the redis gem updated to return an int from exists() instead of a bool like it did before. This doesn’t raise any exceptions because all ints work in if statements. They just always return true. Silently breaking all of the…

"...but will constantly run in to situations where another gems code is using the method that just changed". I've worked with Rails for 20 years and haven't seen this. Have I just been really lucky? I'm sure your test suite showed the warnings about the Redis `exists()` change for many versions prior to its actually being changed, right?

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the perks of Rails is that Ruby itself makes it more compelling. When you need to get to something that the framework doesn’t expose, Ruby makes it easy to get to it without having to rewrite the framework, extend a class and replace it in multiple places or fork it just to use your modification. This applies to the entire gem ecosystem too. Over the years this ability has saved me numerous headaches with only…

Ruby is my least favorite part of Rails by far. The lack of type checking makes every single gem and rails update extremely dangerous in ways that are incredibly difficult to predict. For example the redis gem updated to return an int from exists() instead of a bool like it did before. This doesn’t raise any exceptions because all ints work in if statements. They just always return true. Silently breaking all of the…

Have you checked out sorbet?

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#97
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could you give some examples of what the use cases are where Rails makes it hard to stray from the beaten path? Rails is amazing for greenfield projects. It will automatically do things for you which will greatly reduce the amount of boilerplate you need to write as long as you follow the framework's conventions. However, Rails has a less than stellar reputation from those who have maintained long lived projects wh…

Long-lived rails apps are a nightmare to work with, in exactly the same manner as long-lived java, python or php apps

> Long-lived rails apps are a nightmare to work with, in exactly the same manner as long-lived java, python or php apps

Agreed that tech debt and bad architecture is everywhere. However, from my experience there is a difference in how much work it takes to evolve a project towards something that's less of a nightmare to work with.

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#98

I never understood the "low code" microbubble that was being inflated. We went through that era already. We called them RAD tools, and they targeted the same sort of strange, mythical end user profile. Someone so technically capable and apt that they could navigate a dizzying domain of deeply buried checkboxes, property fields, and sprawling relationships & side-effects, but who was also simultaneously unable to unde…

Well said. You are exactly right. Low Code stuff is usually invented by people with a specific set of criteria that they realize can be generalized, and defined by a GUI, but who lack enough experience to realize the entire world of possibilities can't be crammed into their model. Languages (like Python, etc) are already the most compact way to represent most things, and trying to avoid that fact just makes things even harder.

Re: Rails is better low code than low code

#100
post #92

The comments here are great and show that even if LLMs seem to provide an ability to need to code less, we actually can't stand that for me reasons either.

The problem with LLM-generated code is you can't trust it. It might be fun for games and non-mission critical stuff, and I agree it's coding sills (Claude namely) are amazing, but it often totally misses edge cases, or creates stuff that seems to work, until you scrutinize it and find tons of bugs.

The qualify of software worldwide is about to begin to plummet as developers get lazy and start trusting AI generated code. That's super dangerous. Never trust it.

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