Analyzing options for a technical stack for your digital product might be a difficult task. Usually, most people will search in Google for “should I use this technology”. But whenever you include Ruby on Rails in the search query, you’ll see people saying things like “Rails is dead”. It’s in fact, rather ancient. It goes back 15 years and that’s quite long in the technology world. Yet, one thing is sure: Rails is far from dead. Experienced digital agencies even say it’s the best pick for 2022.
The right library for your project
The majority of online apps will have three key moving parts: the frontend, the backend, and the database. You may think it’s as simple as picking just Flask or Express, or other basic libraries and getting started. But it doesn’t operate that way. Any library will need you to make several options.
Some of the RoR questions you’ll have to answer may have to deal with the frontend:
- How do we make use of JSON?
- How do we get responses?
- How do we get URLs to go to actions?
Some questions are going to be about security:
- How can we protect against common security flaws like SQL injection, XSS, and so on?
- How do we utilize JWT?
And when working with a database, some set of questions will be:
- How should the database be managed?
- How can we get into the database?
- How is the database table naming convention?
Every project that relies on libraries rather than frameworks must make such calls at the outset, often even before someone can begin working on a project. Much of this choice seems exhausting, and that’s something you can avoid (more on that later). We have yet to face our most difficult hurdle – time itself.
Taking advantage of development time
Not everything remains constant over an extended period of time, particularly in programming. After you’ve chosen your tools, you need to put them together. Without a doubt, it’s going to take time. Days pass, you’ve made progress, maybe delivered a Minimum Viable Product. The project is up and running, but your GitHub or GitLab reports that dependencies contain security vulnerabilities. So you update and do what has to be done. You realize that some of your carefully selected libraries are incompatible with one another. You’ve been trapped between.
And another factor that may alter over time is the composition of your team. Some employees depart for what they believe to be brighter pastures. Then other developers are joining your team. They are going to be thoroughly onboarded and comprehend the project’s practices. Developers are naturally inquisitive, therefore they may wonder why that certain library is configured in a particular manner. They’ll also want to know whether there’s anything we can do about it. It’s not necessarily a negative thing but adds to the overall complexity. It will increase over time and occupy it.
The instant you write rails new in the terminal, Ruby on Rails relieves you of the responsibility of choice. The majority of the aforementioned questions have been addressed, and suitable conclusions have been taken. The majority of the legwork has already been done for you, allowing you to focus on what is actually essential – the problem you are attempting to address and its domain. The first pillar of The Rails Doctrine is “optimize for programmer delight”. The RoR community has had plenty of time to develop, evolve, and earn the trust of investors and developers over the last 15 years.
Shipping your digital product
The delivery of your stuff is merely the beginning. Cruft may collect in source code over time. It should go without saying that there is no library that can make the code maintainable in the long run, but given Rails’ continuing presence, we are certain that it provides you the best opportunity of developing maintainable code. Because the ecosystem improves with each major Rails version, you can anticipate the most recent stable version to work for years.
When it comes to managing a Ruby on Rails application, the second pillar of The Rails Doctrine – “Convention over Configuration” – comes to mind. Being entrenched in tradition means there are fewer opportunities for things to go off the tracks. Of course, the Rails team’s fundamental conventions will not meet all use cases, but that doesn’t mean your engineers can’t come up with their own and capitalize on them.
When deciding whether or not to invest in Ruby on Rails in 2021, keep the benefits of the business side in mind.
Is Ruby on Rails your best choice?
Ruby on Rails is a good choice if you need to construct something rapidly while keeping the ability to iterate and enhance it. It has proven to be a wonderful match for both developers and organizations who want to produce their products faster and react to market demands readily at reasonable prices, thanks to its intuitive, straightforward, and legible syntax that results in considerably greater productivity, as well as fast prototyping and scalability. However, to take advantage of the benefits of Ruby on Rails in 2022, you should choose an experienced full-stack digital agency.
