5 ms·

I was a devoted rails fan 10 years ago, but haven't looked back since full stack typescript. What's the general vibe on RoR nowadays?

mplewis 4y ago
Rails is unfortunately much slower, and it’s quite coupled to the concepts of server-side rendering and OOP MVC. Making Rails work with a modern frontend feels pretty hacky compared to using a full-stack TypeScript framework.
- silversmith 4y ago
  I'll give you the slow, but "modern" frontend is a breeze. Webpacker (yes, the deprecated one, newer solutions are worse) handles React beautifully, and my graphql API definition gets seamlessly converted into typescript types. If anything, it often feels even easier than the code sharing I've experienced in node-land.
  - samtheprogram 4y ago
    What are you using for GraphQL support in Rails? I was just looking into this yesterday.
- gls2ro 4y ago
  Because maybe other people might read this: Rails are good enough to keep Shopify standing for another year of holiday sales. It seems to do that since 2006, so this alone demonstrates that Rails can support you a long way in your multi-billion business. And if you think: "yes, but Shopify has a big talented team," I feel the need to say back, "Well, when you are at Shopify business size, you will have it too. And Shopify used it when they were small too." I am not saying Rails fits everything, but if your business fits Rails, that is a great framework to build with.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ezekg 4y ago
I use it daily for my company's API. It's still the most productive framework I've used, and I've used full stack Typescript too (i.e. the wild west).
angelmm 4y ago
At the backend side, it makes easy to build websites. However, the UI layer is a bit complex to integrate with common framework libraries like Vue and React. Although, I still use it in some projects :)
- flakeoil 4y ago
  I'm not sure why you think it's difficult to integrate with Vue and React? Maybe InertiaJS [0] would help. [0] https://inertiajs.com/ https://inertiajs.com/
  - iamveen 4y ago
    OMG thank you! So many times I've wished for a nice way to leverage React UI components within Rails without the nuisance of APIs, client-side state, etc. This appears to fit that bill nicely. Are there any glaring reasons one would not want to use this library?
  - firecall 4y ago
    Would you use this instead of Hotwire?
brink 4y ago
> What's the general vibe on RoR nowadays? Most people that use it are fine and productive. Because of lazy evaluation, type issues persist though. Plenty of instances of trying to call string methods on integers, and array methods on nil, and Rails devs in denial that that's a big problem as the app continues to grow.
- randomdata 4y ago
  Because of lazy evaluation or because the developers aren't properly documenting their work? A language with a formal type system essentially forces you to provide type documentation, but there is an expectation with dynamically typed languages that you will still document the types (probably in your test suite). Rails in particular makes this a core function of the framework to really push you to do so.
  - pmontra 4y ago
    > Rails in particular makes this a core function of the framework to really push you to do so. This sentence surprised me. How does Rails do it? I never documented types in Rails and all was well, since 2005.
    - randomdata 4y ago
      Rails puts testing front and centre. Testing exists to document how features are intended to function and intended to be used (with the added bonus of enabling machine validation of the documentation). If a function accepts an arbitrary type, as is the case for all inputs in a dynamic language, one needs to document how the function is expected to behave when given x type. This is ultimately the same as type checking in a typed language. It just moves where the documentation is located. In that move, it is true that you often lose some strictness in the quality of the documentation. The developers who have an active hatred towards their co-workers may even forgo writing documentation entirely. But if you reach that point you've really got people problems, not technical problems.
- endlessvoid94 4y ago
kshahkshah 4y ago
I love TypeScript, but Rails has a wonderful ecosystem of libraries that just feels unbeatable for the backend. For some reason (hot take incoming) the JS community seems to hate working with each other and improving existing libraries. The Ruby community seems to rally around improving our libraries (gems) rather than reinventing them every year.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- stevebmark 4y ago
  I take it you’ve never tried to install nokogiri?
  - fknorangesite 4y ago
    I think this joke is five or six years out of date (maybe more?). Nokogiri has been a breeze to install for a long time now.
    - dwheeler 4y ago
      I used nokogiri in Ruby on Rails in 2015 and since, and have never had a problem installing nokogiri.
      - fknorangesite 4y ago
        Exactly. It did used to be pretty finicky, but yeah I think it was 2015ish that those issues were fixed.
  - Mikeb85 4y ago
    It's been fine for years now.
DiNovi 4y ago
what the heck is full stack typescript
- texxtxxet 4y ago
  presumably the "programming language(s)" part of the stack never changes between front and back end (it's typescript)?
- jcpst 4y ago
  Writing typescript code that compiles to javascript code that runs on a platform like node.js, and writing typescript code that compiles to javascript that run in a web browser.
systems_glitch 4y ago
Still using it, still highly productive. Not doing as much Rails work as I was 10 years ago but that's due to a change in the nature of my business. We still use it and Sinatra for the bulk of our Internet-facing and internal stuff.
- andrei_says_ 4y ago
  If you use Sinatra take a look at roda. It’s fast and elegant.
  - systems_glitch 4y ago
    I've been meaning to, several people have recommended it to me!
chrisbaker98 4y ago
Switched to Elixir/Phoenix a few years ago and have never looked back. Absolutely a 100% improvement on Rails in every way (except the availability of work!)
- bboylen 4y ago
  What is so nice about Elixir/Phoenix? I understand that it is functional, which seems neat, but how does that translate into better app development?
  - jamie_ca 4y ago
    I don't have a lot of direct experience, but one of the big draws is that by running on top of OTP you get a lot of stuff for free that you'd otherwise need to hit external dependencies for. Caching and background job management that usually see you pull in Redis are the common call-outs. Also, Phoenix LiveView is absolute voodoo magic the first time you experience it.
    - pantulis 4y ago
      Also, performance is mind-blowing. Still I am not really sure that the tradeoff makes it worth against non-FP frameworks a la Rails.
- dmak 4y ago
  Elixir is great. I love it!
- jcpst 4y ago
  I revisited rails this past week for the first time in nearly 10 years. So much easier to quickly develop an app on than what I have been doing. I feel done with the whole SPA thing unless there's no other way to build the app. But now I'm looking at performance, and memory usage, and phoenix looks very appealing from that side. Now I think I should try pheonix, since both rails and phoenix are new to me, so I can compare.
serverholic 4y ago
I went from a full stack typescript project to a rails project and honestly I hate it. The Ruby language is great if you want to jerk off about how concise your code is but programmers end up creating overly abstract, write-only code. There’s so much magic that it’s hard to trace the code to see where stuff comes from. Abstractions are over-engineered. Serializers should be simple, async functions that are easy to step through and debug. Instead you have serializer relations? Delegates, etc. Don’t even get me started on updating rails itself. It’s a massive pain every time and you quite often see projects that are multiple major versions behind. In typescript it’s common to integrate multiple independent libraries into your own framework. This is great because if I need to update my database library I can focus on that specific part of the code. Updating rails means everything could potentially break. Oh and there’s no type system so good luck.
redox99 4y ago
What technologies exactly do you use in your full stack typescript?
- ithrow 4y ago
  nodejs, postgres and react?
  - alexcosan 4y ago
    I would be curious to understand what frameworks people tend to use on top of nodejs (or even react). I have not found a standard devise-like way of implementing authentication in nodejs. The usual recommendation I come across is to develop all from scratch (encryption, emails, session management), using something like Passport, outsource it and pay to some third-party or use a framework like nextauth which is very opinionated and hard to change basic options. It's not uncommon to see people changing between ORM or SQL builders all the time because it's hard to find one that works greatly - it seems like a common discussion online in node communities. I love TypeScript and would love to use it more extensively, but whenever I start a project, I quickly feel like I'm wasting so much time to do something that I'd hope a) it'd be very quick, and b) there would be some general agreement in the community on the right approach. It'd be great to compile what libraries to use, so you can very quickly put something together like you'd be able to do with Rails (e.g. devise, sidekiq, actionmailer, ...).
bambataa 4y ago
What are you using for full stack Typescript? I’m not aware of anything as batteries included as Rails.
- multiplegeorges 4y ago
  There isn't one. RedwoodJS or Blitz come closest, IMO.
  - e12e 4y ago
    And maybe deno+fresh? https://fresh.deno.dev/ https://fresh.deno.dev/
Alifatisk 4y ago
Any link to what you refer as fullstack typescript?
andrei_says_ 4y ago
I’ve never seen a more productive stack. Enables me to build complete apps as a single dev - which would take 2x-5x of the time and effort if using separate front end apps. Ruby makes me happy when I use it. Hotwire and Stimulus let me create front end interactions without a separate SPA. The ecosystem is mature and well maintained. Absolutely love it.
- jack_riminton 4y ago
  I second this sentiment exactly!
- methehack 4y ago
  Rails is really a gift. It's so productive and works so great on teams because of the heavy conventions I think. And the ruby library ecosystem is insanely good. Libraries generally do what they say they're going to do and there are libraries for everything. I've wondered a lot about why this is. Heavy air time? Is there something about ruby? Every now and then I try some new web app framework that catches my eye in some new language and it always seems like its just getting started compared to rails -- and, it is. Worth noting -- rails works great API only as well. I bet Django is pretty good by now too of course, but Rails is really a fantastic tool well suited to task.
sergiotapia 4y ago
I recently tried Nextjs and Remix to explore other stacks since I've been using Elixir and Phoenix since 2016. You won't find the dev UX you take for granted in Elixir and Phoenix. Endless routing options, background jobs? Just install Squirrel and yadabadabadoo or just use AWS SQS(https://old.reddit.com/r/nextjs/comments/qspw4v/how_to_do_background_jobs_workers_tasks_etc/ https://old.reddit.com/r/nextjs/comments/qspw4v/how_to_do_ba...). What about solid backend processes? Can I call those in some kind of repl? In Elixir I can just go `iex -S mix phx.server` and `MyModule.foobar("test")` and bada bing I'm all set. What about logging? Wait I need to decide and configure a logger? I also need to decide and configure what to output to? What about a nice ORM? Prisma looks good, set that whole thing up from scratch, I need to await, but special considerations need to be thought of when iterating through a collection? Promise.all vs for..of? I iterated an array and want to save it to the DB but it's running out of connections (https://github.com/prisma/prisma/discussions/16884 https://github.com/prisma/prisma/discussions/16884)? Why do I even need to think about this? Really curious to hear your counterpoints to this because granted I am quite new to backend typescript.
- melony 4y ago
  The counter argument is that you don't have to babysit any of those services. AWS/some other PaaS will handle everything for pennies. Unless you are working in a low cost of labor country, developer time is going to be more expensive than anything else. It will take very large scale/growth for infrastructure fees to exceed the total compensation of a decent US staff engineer or a site reliability engineering team.
  - fomine3 4y ago
    A problem is that "penny" isn't actually penny for hobby or very small internal in-corp project.

mplewis 4y ago

Rails is unfortunately much slower, and it’s quite coupled to the concepts of server-side rendering and OOP MVC. Making Rails work with a modern frontend feels pretty hacky compared to using a full-stack TypeScript framework.

silversmith 4y ago
I'll give you the slow, but "modern" frontend is a breeze. Webpacker (yes, the deprecated one, newer solutions are worse) handles React beautifully, and my graphql API definition gets seamlessly converted into typescript types. If anything, it often feels even easier than the code sharing I've experienced in node-land.
- samtheprogram 4y ago
  What are you using for GraphQL support in Rails? I was just looking into this yesterday.
gls2ro 4y ago
Because maybe other people might read this: Rails are good enough to keep Shopify standing for another year of holiday sales. It seems to do that since 2006, so this alone demonstrates that Rails can support you a long way in your multi-billion business. And if you think: "yes, but Shopify has a big talented team," I feel the need to say back, "Well, when you are at Shopify business size, you will have it too. And Shopify used it when they were small too." I am not saying Rails fits everything, but if your business fits Rails, that is a great framework to build with.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ezekg 4y ago

I use it daily for my company's API. It's still the most productive framework I've used, and I've used full stack Typescript too (i.e. the wild west).

angelmm 4y ago

At the backend side, it makes easy to build websites. However, the UI layer is a bit complex to integrate with common framework libraries like Vue and React. Although, I still use it in some projects :)

flakeoil 4y ago
I'm not sure why you think it's difficult to integrate with Vue and React? Maybe InertiaJS [0] would help. [0] https://inertiajs.com/ https://inertiajs.com/
- iamveen 4y ago
  OMG thank you! So many times I've wished for a nice way to leverage React UI components within Rails without the nuisance of APIs, client-side state, etc. This appears to fit that bill nicely. Are there any glaring reasons one would not want to use this library?
- firecall 4y ago
  Would you use this instead of Hotwire?

brink 4y ago

> What's the general vibe on RoR nowadays? Most people that use it are fine and productive. Because of lazy evaluation, type issues persist though. Plenty of instances of trying to call string methods on integers, and array methods on nil, and Rails devs in denial that that's a big problem as the app continues to grow.

randomdata 4y ago
Because of lazy evaluation or because the developers aren't properly documenting their work? A language with a formal type system essentially forces you to provide type documentation, but there is an expectation with dynamically typed languages that you will still document the types (probably in your test suite). Rails in particular makes this a core function of the framework to really push you to do so.
- pmontra 4y ago
  > Rails in particular makes this a core function of the framework to really push you to do so. This sentence surprised me. How does Rails do it? I never documented types in Rails and all was well, since 2005.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    Rails puts testing front and centre. Testing exists to document how features are intended to function and intended to be used (with the added bonus of enabling machine validation of the documentation). If a function accepts an arbitrary type, as is the case for all inputs in a dynamic language, one needs to document how the function is expected to behave when given x type. This is ultimately the same as type checking in a typed language. It just moves where the documentation is located. In that move, it is true that you often lose some strictness in the quality of the documentation. The developers who have an active hatred towards their co-workers may even forgo writing documentation entirely. But if you reach that point you've really got people problems, not technical problems.
endlessvoid94 4y ago

kshahkshah 4y ago

I love TypeScript, but Rails has a wonderful ecosystem of libraries that just feels unbeatable for the backend. For some reason (hot take incoming) the JS community seems to hate working with each other and improving existing libraries. The Ruby community seems to rally around improving our libraries (gems) rather than reinventing them every year.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
stevebmark 4y ago
I take it you’ve never tried to install nokogiri?
- fknorangesite 4y ago
  I think this joke is five or six years out of date (maybe more?). Nokogiri has been a breeze to install for a long time now.
  - dwheeler 4y ago
    I used nokogiri in Ruby on Rails in 2015 and since, and have never had a problem installing nokogiri.
    - fknorangesite 4y ago
      Exactly. It did used to be pretty finicky, but yeah I think it was 2015ish that those issues were fixed.
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  It's been fine for years now.

DiNovi 4y ago

what the heck is full stack typescript

texxtxxet 4y ago
presumably the "programming language(s)" part of the stack never changes between front and back end (it's typescript)?
jcpst 4y ago
Writing typescript code that compiles to javascript code that runs on a platform like node.js, and writing typescript code that compiles to javascript that run in a web browser.

systems_glitch 4y ago

Still using it, still highly productive. Not doing as much Rails work as I was 10 years ago but that's due to a change in the nature of my business. We still use it and Sinatra for the bulk of our Internet-facing and internal stuff.

andrei_says_ 4y ago
If you use Sinatra take a look at roda. It’s fast and elegant.
- systems_glitch 4y ago
  I've been meaning to, several people have recommended it to me!

chrisbaker98 4y ago

Switched to Elixir/Phoenix a few years ago and have never looked back. Absolutely a 100% improvement on Rails in every way (except the availability of work!)

bboylen 4y ago
What is so nice about Elixir/Phoenix? I understand that it is functional, which seems neat, but how does that translate into better app development?
- jamie_ca 4y ago
  I don't have a lot of direct experience, but one of the big draws is that by running on top of OTP you get a lot of stuff for free that you'd otherwise need to hit external dependencies for. Caching and background job management that usually see you pull in Redis are the common call-outs. Also, Phoenix LiveView is absolute voodoo magic the first time you experience it.
  - pantulis 4y ago
    Also, performance is mind-blowing. Still I am not really sure that the tradeoff makes it worth against non-FP frameworks a la Rails.
dmak 4y ago
Elixir is great. I love it!
jcpst 4y ago
I revisited rails this past week for the first time in nearly 10 years. So much easier to quickly develop an app on than what I have been doing. I feel done with the whole SPA thing unless there's no other way to build the app. But now I'm looking at performance, and memory usage, and phoenix looks very appealing from that side. Now I think I should try pheonix, since both rails and phoenix are new to me, so I can compare.

serverholic 4y ago

I went from a full stack typescript project to a rails project and honestly I hate it. The Ruby language is great if you want to jerk off about how concise your code is but programmers end up creating overly abstract, write-only code. There’s so much magic that it’s hard to trace the code to see where stuff comes from. Abstractions are over-engineered. Serializers should be simple, async functions that are easy to step through and debug. Instead you have serializer relations? Delegates, etc. Don’t even get me started on updating rails itself. It’s a massive pain every time and you quite often see projects that are multiple major versions behind. In typescript it’s common to integrate multiple independent libraries into your own framework. This is great because if I need to update my database library I can focus on that specific part of the code. Updating rails means everything could potentially break. Oh and there’s no type system so good luck.

redox99 4y ago

What technologies exactly do you use in your full stack typescript?

ithrow 4y ago
nodejs, postgres and react?
- alexcosan 4y ago
  I would be curious to understand what frameworks people tend to use on top of nodejs (or even react). I have not found a standard devise-like way of implementing authentication in nodejs. The usual recommendation I come across is to develop all from scratch (encryption, emails, session management), using something like Passport, outsource it and pay to some third-party or use a framework like nextauth which is very opinionated and hard to change basic options. It's not uncommon to see people changing between ORM or SQL builders all the time because it's hard to find one that works greatly - it seems like a common discussion online in node communities. I love TypeScript and would love to use it more extensively, but whenever I start a project, I quickly feel like I'm wasting so much time to do something that I'd hope a) it'd be very quick, and b) there would be some general agreement in the community on the right approach. It'd be great to compile what libraries to use, so you can very quickly put something together like you'd be able to do with Rails (e.g. devise, sidekiq, actionmailer, ...).

bambataa 4y ago

What are you using for full stack Typescript? I’m not aware of anything as batteries included as Rails.

multiplegeorges 4y ago
There isn't one. RedwoodJS or Blitz come closest, IMO.
- e12e 4y ago
  And maybe deno+fresh? https://fresh.deno.dev/ https://fresh.deno.dev/

Alifatisk 4y ago

Any link to what you refer as fullstack typescript?

andrei_says_ 4y ago

I’ve never seen a more productive stack. Enables me to build complete apps as a single dev - which would take 2x-5x of the time and effort if using separate front end apps. Ruby makes me happy when I use it. Hotwire and Stimulus let me create front end interactions without a separate SPA. The ecosystem is mature and well maintained. Absolutely love it.

jack_riminton 4y ago
I second this sentiment exactly!
methehack 4y ago
Rails is really a gift. It's so productive and works so great on teams because of the heavy conventions I think. And the ruby library ecosystem is insanely good. Libraries generally do what they say they're going to do and there are libraries for everything. I've wondered a lot about why this is. Heavy air time? Is there something about ruby? Every now and then I try some new web app framework that catches my eye in some new language and it always seems like its just getting started compared to rails -- and, it is. Worth noting -- rails works great API only as well. I bet Django is pretty good by now too of course, but Rails is really a fantastic tool well suited to task.

sergiotapia 4y ago

I recently tried Nextjs and Remix to explore other stacks since I've been using Elixir and Phoenix since 2016. You won't find the dev UX you take for granted in Elixir and Phoenix. Endless routing options, background jobs? Just install Squirrel and yadabadabadoo or just use AWS SQS(https://old.reddit.com/r/nextjs/comments/qspw4v/how_to_do_background_jobs_workers_tasks_etc/ https://old.reddit.com/r/nextjs/comments/qspw4v/how_to_do_ba...). What about solid backend processes? Can I call those in some kind of repl? In Elixir I can just go `iex -S mix phx.server` and `MyModule.foobar("test")` and bada bing I'm all set. What about logging? Wait I need to decide and configure a logger? I also need to decide and configure what to output to? What about a nice ORM? Prisma looks good, set that whole thing up from scratch, I need to await, but special considerations need to be thought of when iterating through a collection? Promise.all vs for..of? I iterated an array and want to save it to the DB but it's running out of connections (https://github.com/prisma/prisma/discussions/16884 https://github.com/prisma/prisma/discussions/16884)? Why do I even need to think about this? Really curious to hear your counterpoints to this because granted I am quite new to backend typescript.

melony 4y ago
The counter argument is that you don't have to babysit any of those services. AWS/some other PaaS will handle everything for pennies. Unless you are working in a low cost of labor country, developer time is going to be more expensive than anything else. It will take very large scale/growth for infrastructure fees to exceed the total compensation of a decent US staff engineer or a site reliability engineering team.
- fomine3 4y ago
  A problem is that "penny" isn't actually penny for hobby or very small internal in-corp project.