{"id":14341,"date":"2024-01-31T14:59:23","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T14:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1403504"},"modified":"2024-01-31T14:59:23","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T14:59:23","slug":"my-love-letter-to-rails-and-ruby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=14341","title":{"rendered":"My love letter to Rails (and Ruby)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article was originally published on .cult<\/a> by Patrick Helm<\/a>. .cult is a Berlin-based community platform for developers. We write about all things career-related, make original documentaries, and share heaps of other untold developer stories from around the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

Once, there was a little online quiz with 10 questions.<\/p>\n

Each question displayed a tiny method and one had to guess if it was defined in the Ruby core language, or within the Rails framework.<\/p>\n

Neither Matz nor DHH scored 10\/10.<\/p>\n

Yukihiro Matsumoto<\/a>, also known as Matz, is the creator of the Ruby language.<\/p>\n

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David Heinemeier Hanson, aka DHH<\/a>, invented the Rails framework.<\/p>\n

Well, if neither of them can differentiate between Ruby and Ruby on Rails, please bear with me; I might mix a few things up as well.<\/p>\n

Why did I fall in love with Ruby on Rails?<\/h2>\n

Over a decade ago, during a semester break, I released a tweet saying that I wanted to learn something new.<\/p>\n

A friend replied: There is a new kid on the block, called \u2018Ruby On Rails\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

I then started following a guide on how to build a Twitter clone and a simple blog with RoR.<\/p>\n

That took me less than 2 days. Mindblown!<\/p>\n

Working with the syntax of Ruby\/Rails, quite often it almost reads like an English text.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no wonder then that the Rails doctrine<\/a> is \u2018Optimize for programmer happiness\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

After this experience, I went to do an internship explicitly using Ruby on Rails.<\/p>\n

This tutorial and the internship that followed were the reasons why I\u2019ve been enjoying the Ruby\/Rails world for over a decade now.<\/p>\n

A few of my favourite tools<\/h2>\n

This world consists of a great community and an even greater ecosystem.<\/p>\n

Packages in Ruby are called gems. So we got a great packaging system called rubygems.<\/p>\n

Two other tools I use very frequently are Rubular<\/a> to play around with regular expressions, and The Ruby Toolbox<\/a> to find some existing solutions to the problems we have to solve.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m (still) lovin it<\/h2>\n

Even today, I\u2019m still a \u2018Rubyist by day and night\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

Rails and Ruby evolve continuously. As a tradition, a new Ruby major\/minor version is released every Christmas.<\/p>\n

As a present to the community.<\/p>\n

Rails might not be the coolest kid on the block anymore.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s grown up, but still surprises the community with new useful features and improvements.<\/p>\n

What I still value quite a lot is \u2018Rails is omakase\u2019<\/em>. Aka, it ships with a lot of defaults which are easy to change!<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not happy with the default testing framework at a new rails project, you can swap it out with whatever you prefer! Do you just want to use Rails as an API and not ship HTML over the wire?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re using Rails for over at Honeypot.<\/p>\n

Is anyone still using Rails?<\/h2>\n

A common phrase I read or hear from time to time is \u2018Isn\u2019t Rails dead yet?\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Just recently Rails 7.1<\/a> has been released with over 800 different individual contributors!<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s consistent with the recent history of Rails development.<\/p>\n

So maintenance-wise it\u2019s definitely not dead yet.<\/p>\n

Almost a year ago the Rails Foundation was founded.<\/p>\n

This is a non-profit organisation aimed at improving the documentation, education, marketing, and events around Rails. One of its major milestones was hosting the very first Rails World conference in Amsterdam this year. Tickets were sold out within 45 minutes! I\u2019d say, that\u2019s a sign of a pretty active community.<\/p>\n

But does it scale?<\/h2>\n

\u201cOk, so it\u2019s not dead. But does it scale?!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a phrase I read\/hear even more often.<\/p>\n

As we now already know, Ruby is not the newest kid on the block anymore, it\u2019s definitely not the fastest one either.<\/p>\n

But did you know that you\u2019re most likely using a Ruby On Rails website almost daily?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking about GitHub and GitLab. Both of them are pretty classic Ruby On Rails applications.<\/p>\n

GitLab is an open-source<\/a> web application, in case you want to browse the codebase \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Another company that you might have heard of, and that is still using Ruby On Rails, is Shopify!<\/p>\n

And since we\u2019re talking about scaling, let me present you some facts about Shopify with regard to scaling Rails:<\/p>\n