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I agree that this is not a good example of simplicity vs ease, but I think his core argument is still correct about what Rails is. (Whether you or I may like/di

I agree that this is not a good example of simplicity vs ease, but I think his core argument is still correct about what Rails is. (Whether you or I may like/dislike "What Rails Is" is, of course, another matter.)

tptacek 10y ago
The other way to look at Rails is that, as a framework, it has made a decision to have the model carry most of the weight for domain logic. In a "fat model skinny controller" framework, you're not surprised to see single lines of "magical" code like this in the controller, any more than you're surprised that each line of the route table masks thousands of lines of code that execute when a URL is matched. This is very much not Merb's design. But that doesn't make it an invalid design; it just means that understanding a Rails app might best start with the models, not the controllers. (There's a lot not to like about Rails! It's been years since I worked in it full time and I don't miss it.)
- eropple 10y ago
  > that doesn't make it an invalid design In 2016, with systems regularly decomposing into services for both perf and code management purposes, I'm trying really hard to find a reason to say this isn't an invalid approach except for what amount to toy problems (the kind where "if you don't know where you're trying to go, any road will get you there"). ActiveRecord being a mudball of "what X is" and "how to get X" is a really, really big problem, and my view of it as an observer--heavy in Ruby, heavy in avoiding Rails at all costs--is that it seems to be sourced from an unwillingness of the Rails community to consider that not everything is Rails. Services become intractable, as I note in my reply to your first post--and I don't even mean "microservice all the things", just the profoundly unsexy and unbloggable "SOA".
  - braythwayt 10y ago
    Rails can be used in many contexts, but its first love is the making of integrated systems: Majestic monoliths!--DHH Source: "The Rails Doctrine" http://rubyonrails.org/doctrine/ http://rubyonrails.org/doctrine/
    - eropple 10y ago
      That DHH might even believe with a straight face enough of that essay to write its contents like an English major who just discovered the adjective doesn't really change that the universe is continuing to shrink the place in which his viewpoint can make sense. And, with it, goes Ruby's relevance, because of the heavy weight of Rails on the Ruby world as a whole.

tptacek 10y ago

The other way to look at Rails is that, as a framework, it has made a decision to have the model carry most of the weight for domain logic. In a "fat model skinny controller" framework, you're not surprised to see single lines of "magical" code like this in the controller, any more than you're surprised that each line of the route table masks thousands of lines of code that execute when a URL is matched. This is very much not Merb's design. But that doesn't make it an invalid design; it just means that understanding a Rails app might best start with the models, not the controllers. (There's a lot not to like about Rails! It's been years since I worked in it full time and I don't miss it.)

eropple 10y ago
> that doesn't make it an invalid design In 2016, with systems regularly decomposing into services for both perf and code management purposes, I'm trying really hard to find a reason to say this isn't an invalid approach except for what amount to toy problems (the kind where "if you don't know where you're trying to go, any road will get you there"). ActiveRecord being a mudball of "what X is" and "how to get X" is a really, really big problem, and my view of it as an observer--heavy in Ruby, heavy in avoiding Rails at all costs--is that it seems to be sourced from an unwillingness of the Rails community to consider that not everything is Rails. Services become intractable, as I note in my reply to your first post--and I don't even mean "microservice all the things", just the profoundly unsexy and unbloggable "SOA".
- braythwayt 10y ago
  Rails can be used in many contexts, but its first love is the making of integrated systems: Majestic monoliths!--DHH Source: "The Rails Doctrine" http://rubyonrails.org/doctrine/ http://rubyonrails.org/doctrine/
  - eropple 10y ago
    That DHH might even believe with a straight face enough of that essay to write its contents like an English major who just discovered the adjective doesn't really change that the universe is continuing to shrink the place in which his viewpoint can make sense. And, with it, goes Ruby's relevance, because of the heavy weight of Rails on the Ruby world as a whole.