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Many new web developers have absolutely no idea what is Ruby on Rails.
I encourage those people do their research and learn more about this beautiful web framework.
Ruby is a programming language and Rails is a framework to create web applications.
Others web frameworks like Laravel, Django, Adonis use many concepts used by Rails.
Rails is in some way the father of those modern frameworks. Rails inspire a lot of modern web development concepts.
With Rails you can build a fullstack web application. You can even do frontend web app (SPA like React and Vue) with only using html/css and ruby code.
Rails are old but Rails is not what it was when introduce. Rails have evolved over the year to add all the modern goodies. Rails are now at version 6 and version 7 is just around the corner.
So why use it? Why not use a Node.js/Express app or any other more popular backend frameworks?
I guess the reason can be different for every Rails developers, but for my part I choose Rails when I need development speed and efficiency! No other framework can build a web app faster than Rails.
For that specific reason Rails is use by a lot of startup companies.
Ruby on Rails is also used by some giant companies like Shopify, GitHub, Air B&B and a lot lot more.
I also like the Ruby language a lot. Do yourself a favour and take a deep look at the Ruby language.
Are Rails best for all projects? Of course not, but with the right project is still no 1 even after all those years.
If you are a Ruby on Rails developer, please leave in the comments section why for you Rails is still one of your favorite framework?
Oldest comments (19)
We use RoR in our company as the main technology. Ruby is a language with nice syntax, and Rails contain a huge number of handy pieces.
But for my pet-projects, I'm still using Django because it is easier for me. I think, the killer features of Django it is automatic migrations generation and built-in admin panel.
But the basic structure of a project on rails seems to me more correct and convenient for developing large applications.
For me, it's the community. The Ruby language itself has a very supportive and dedicated community that I find easy to navigate and fun to participate in. Rails has just as robust and interesting group of developers working in it as well. I have a lot of "Ruby friends" that I really enjoy spending time with - both in-front-of and away-from a computer.
And also, Rails is a grandpa in terms of modern frameworks - it's been around a while, has a ton of resources backing it, and issues are easily searched on S.O. and Google. This also makes Dev work a breeze in Rails, and quite enjoyable.
Thanks for the article. You may have motivated this old dog to learn some new tricks :)
I never thought of Ruby on Rails after I got drowned by Python and Django for web development until I met this article and other developers criticizing Python for it's poor support for mobile development and sluggishness...
Can I create mobile apps using Ruby?
Thanks for the article. I'm learning Ruby today and I'm looking forward to getting to Rails.
Ruby is my favorite language, that's why I still use Rails.
As you said, Rails has paved the way for the others MVC (and variations) frameworks such as Django, Laravel and others. They have done it first and keep on doing it quite well. Every version brings important updates and Rails 6 is really awesome, including cache and front-end possibilities by the Javascript pipelines it has (and Node.js etc).
Sometimes it seems that other frameworks have made themselves famous in only by comparison to Rails. Also, it seems a good school for web dev.
Ruby is at the same time elegant, beautiful (the object model is astonishing...) and so powerful (I've even got myself making database queries in Ruby, instead of using Python, for the convenience)! Also, there seems to be a gem for everything.
And Ruby from 2.6 on (we're on 3.0) in blazing fast for a dinamically typed language! Even more than Python.
Ruby is amazing... try it if you haven't.
Syntactic genius of ruby is what sold me.
Specifically this type of loop
10.times do
Puts 'Hello fellow rubyist'
End
This one blew my mind when I learned about it. And the way everything is an object.
It's so beautiful
The simple design to name functions, methods, and variables so they are clear descriptions of what's happening and designing the framework around that makes everything straightforward and easy. I still have trouble making sure I'm following best practice so I don't end up with spaghetti code. The tutorials from the community were also great!
Ruby is this one language that has my heart. Fell in love, haven't looked back since. The syntax is so elegant. RoR has taught me so many things with regards to web development. And everytime I need to implement a new feature for the fun of it, I find out RoR has a really good implementation.
Case and point, I needed to do some instant messaging features and I had never done that before. In comes ActionCable and yes lord.
RoR is great for beginners to learn about web dev with frameworks, MVC architecture, API endpoints and so much more. It's amazing.
Have been using ruby on rails for 2 months but still don't like it
That's not very long.
May I know why you don't like it
I don't like its implicity or magic. It's been two months but I can only understand very limited amount of codes.
Personally, I like the Ruby language because it offers the flexibility of doing one thing several ways. I love the syntax as well. I've used Rails on the past but I prefer Django more because I think Django has some in-built features I love as @rhamdeew already mentioned.
I think with rails, it can easily become very complex and confusing to learn and you can easily go off the rails because of what I call too flexible approach.
I use Rails API for all my backends. I understand SQL extremely well, and ActiveRecord as an ORM too. It's extremely quick to build out APIs for all my various frontends. Whether I'm working on a new Svelte app, or a new Flutter app, Rails as a backend is so insanely productive, I basically don't even have to think about anything.
I once lost appetite for the job of programming and wanted to change my career and do something else. Then I started working with people knowledgable in RoR. We did TDD, pair-programming (even remote over ssh'd terminal), and all sorts of fun stuff. The RoR people that I worked with and the whole community have always been fun and helpful.
After 10 years, I'm still here writing software and loving my job. I don't get to work with RoR as much as before but it's still my go-to framework.
I've always liked Ruby on Rails so I'm glad it's still alive and kicking! I was able to find a developer job without any problems thanks to the EPAM Anywhere platform anywhere.epam.com/en/freelance-rem... . It turned out that many companies need remote Ruby on Rails developers today, so finding a decent job offer is not difficult.