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> IMHO, the main reason Rails is declining in relevance isn't microservices or the productivity (!) of Java, but the fact that more and more development effort

> IMHO, the main reason Rails is declining in relevance isn't microservices or the productivity (!) of Java, but the fact that more and more development effort for web applications is moving into JS front-end coding. This. I also suspect that for developers whose first language - or primary language these days - is JavaScript it's a lot more comfortable to reach for a Node backend framework when they need it. Also, Go has become pretty popular for somewhat more custom or complex backend tasks. Plus, there are more and more high-level third-party services offering different pieces of backend functionality.

billdybas 9y ago
I would consider JavaScript my primary language, and you're right - Node is usually my go-to choice for a web backend. Express is pretty easy to grasp and be productive with. But when I need more (auth, orm, logging, etc.), I feel like I'm spending more time searching for and curating packages and then trying to get them integrated than I am actually building an application. Rails (especially its API flag) has caught my attention recently because this becomes a non-issue - you pretty much just use what Rails has included.
- cozuya 9y ago
  Huh I have had a very easy time integrating passport, mongoose, and morgan respectively for the above 3 asks.
  - asdf1234 9y ago
    I'd normally also have to select packages for sending emails, running background jobs, internationalization, templates, validation, file uploads and caching at a bare minimum. Then I'd have to make sure they all work well together, setup testing and probably have to write additional functionality that Rails or Django already covers. Frameworks like Rails and Django cover a ton of functionality and gluing together and maintaining a set of packages to cover even a fraction of that functionality is a ton of work that's often for very little gain.
    - rbrcurtis 9y ago
      Check out hapi. https://hapijs.com https://hapijs.com
Daishiman 9y ago
NodeJS as a backend platform is still horribly inefficient and years behind mature Python and Ruby solutions.

billdybas 9y ago

I would consider JavaScript my primary language, and you're right - Node is usually my go-to choice for a web backend. Express is pretty easy to grasp and be productive with. But when I need more (auth, orm, logging, etc.), I feel like I'm spending more time searching for and curating packages and then trying to get them integrated than I am actually building an application. Rails (especially its API flag) has caught my attention recently because this becomes a non-issue - you pretty much just use what Rails has included.

cozuya 9y ago
Huh I have had a very easy time integrating passport, mongoose, and morgan respectively for the above 3 asks.
- asdf1234 9y ago
  I'd normally also have to select packages for sending emails, running background jobs, internationalization, templates, validation, file uploads and caching at a bare minimum. Then I'd have to make sure they all work well together, setup testing and probably have to write additional functionality that Rails or Django already covers. Frameworks like Rails and Django cover a ton of functionality and gluing together and maintaining a set of packages to cover even a fraction of that functionality is a ton of work that's often for very little gain.
  - rbrcurtis 9y ago
    Check out hapi. https://hapijs.com https://hapijs.com

Daishiman 9y ago

NodeJS as a backend platform is still horribly inefficient and years behind mature Python and Ruby solutions.