The latest articles on DEV Community by Ariejan de Vroom (@ariejan). https://dev.to/ariejan https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F571452%2F25a81189-c124-40f1-bb91-2acc9d1f5eee.jpeg https://dev.to/ariejan en Ariejan de Vroom Thu, 21 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://dev.to/kabisasoftware/rails-without-tha-added-sugar-1aa7 https://dev.to/kabisasoftware/rails-without-tha-added-sugar-1aa7 <p>A modern web application has many moving parts, Ruby on Rails is no exception. With a new Ruby on Rails 6.1 application there's a lot you get for free.</p> <h2> What you get for free: </h2> <ul> <li>Outgoing email handling (<code>action_mailer</code>)</li> <li>Incoming email handling (<code>action_mailbox</code>)</li> <li>Text markup / editing in the browser that works (<code>action_text</code>)</li> <li>Compiling and bundling static assets like CSS, JavaScript, fonts and images (<code>sprockets</code>)</li> <li>Making use of the whole NPM ecosystem for front-end technology (<code>webpacker</code>)</li> <li>Background workers (<code>active_job</code>)</li> <li>Websockets with fallback (<code>action_cable</code>)</li> <li>An awesome DSL to generate JSON (<code>jbuilder</code>)</li> <li>Make your application load faster in the browser (<code>turbolinks</code>)</li> <li>Increase performance by caching expensive computations (<code>bootsnap</code>)</li> <li>Application pre-loader (<code>spring</code>)</li> <li>Store files locally or in the cloud (<code>active_storage</code>)</li> </ul> <p>However, there are times you want to start with something simpler, without<br> the burden of all these extras. </p> <h2> A minimal approach </h2> <p>You <em>could</em> use all the <code>--skip-*</code> options to disable each of these, but<br> Rails 6.1. packs the <code>--minimal</code> option instead:<br> </p> <div class="highlight js-code-highlight"> <pre class="highlight plaintext"><code>rails new my_app --minimal </code></pre> </div> <p>It should be noted that this does not imply a <em>classic</em> Rails app, as <br> <a href="https://github.com/rails/rails/pull/39282#issuecomment-629503802">DHH eloquently put it</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>Classic gives it an air of cool that I'm not interested in. It's not about reminiscing of some glorious past. It's just "I want the bare minimum"</p> </blockquote> <p>That bare minimum is a great starting point if you're not yet ready for all the goodies and<br> maybe uncertain whether you're going to need them at all. Adding the ones you need later it<br> just like adding any other gem to your Rails project.</p> <p>I'm a big proponent of this approach, as less dependencies (you don't use) means your codebase<br> will be easier to maintain and upgrade in the future. </p> <h2> More points with combos! </h2> <p>If you're really into front-end and would like to use webpacker with a minimal Rails app,<br> that's possible too. Selecting a specific database adapter is also still possible.<br> </p> <div class="highlight js-code-highlight"> <pre class="highlight plaintext"><code>rails new cool_app --minimal --database postgresql webpack=react </code></pre> </div> rails ruby