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Every time I read that one of the “downsides” of RoR is that it “doesn’t sound cool” I know I’m in the right place! I’ll have mature teammates who understand th

by jspash 6y ago

Every time I read that one of the “downsides” of RoR is that it “doesn’t sound cool” I know I’m in the right place! I’ll have mature teammates who understand the right tool for the right job. I won’t have to work with magpie developers with an acute case of not-invented-here syndrome. Granted Rails isn’t the answer to everything. I’ve been loving what we can accomplish with elixir/Phoenix. But I’ll leave the hipsterism to the JS community and marvel as they reinvent wheels over and over again.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rualca 6y ago
> (...) I’ll have mature teammates who understand the right tool for the right job. I Honest question: what leads you to believe that Ruby on Rails, or even Ruby, is the right tool for the right job? You didn't even mentioned the job, so why do you automatically assume Ruby is the right tool? Additionally, by ignoring popularity you're also ignoring availability of documentation and examples and mindshare. You're also ignoring experience, and prior onboarding into a language stack, which automatically means odds are anyone onboarding into the project will quickly be up and running. Speaking as someone who was forced to onboard into a Ruby project just because a predecessor jumped on the bandwagon, the experience was an unmitigated disaster. A minor onboarding task that consisted of tweaking a hard codes settin in a module required me and a couple of colleagues to spend a few days a) learning a brand new programming language, b) learning exotic frameworks, c) getting acquainted with idiomatic Ruby, d) learning how to troubleshoot and debug Ruby applications, e) properly setup a software dev environment, and f) finally fix the issue. If my predecessor opted to use Python instead of succumbing to bandwagons and resume-driven development practices, the same thing would take a couple of man/hours. How does can this sort of snafu pass off as the right tool for the right job?
- derwiki 6y ago
  It sounds like more than RoR. Anecdata counterpoint: I’ve worked on a few RoR projects that were well architected and only took me a few days to fully ramp up.
- ysavir 6y ago
  Sounds like this is less about whether RoR was the right tool for the job and more that no one other the implementer was familiar with Ruby/Rails (and maybe not even them). This might mean that this wasn't the right tool _for your team_, but it's not a comment on what jobs are a good fit with RoR.
  - rualca 6y ago
    > Sounds like this is less about whether RoR was the right tool for the job and more that no one other the implementer was familiar with Ruby/Rails (and maybe not even them). Isn't that already an operational problem? I mean, consider the mental burden alone of being forced to onboard to a completely different and relatively obscure tech stack, including the quirky programming language that serves as it's base, and all just to keep a web service up and running.
- realusername 6y ago
  > If my predecessor opted to use Python instead of succumbing to bandwagons and resume-driven development practices, the same thing would take a couple of man/hours. That's my opinion but after maintaining some large Rails apps and large Django apps, I would still take Rails any day. Just the testing quality and the batteries included makes it worth it, whereas the main downsides of Rails (speed and lack of typing) are also there anyways on a Django project. That aside, if people building the project don't have any experience with what they are doing, it will be messy regardless of the framework or the language.
- schnable 6y ago
  If you knew Ruby and not the Python, the whole scenario would have been flipped.
  - rualca 6y ago
    > If you knew Ruby and not the Python, the whole scenario would have been flipped. That's why popularity matters. The odds that any random kid already has experience with Python are far greater than him knowing Ruby.
    - ricketycricket 6y ago
      This was the argument for php in 2010.
    - joelbluminator 6y ago
      I get the point, it's not completely invalid. And still, calling Rails "obscure" is a stretch. In web dev world it's still a pretty dominant framework. There shouldn't really be any problem to hire Ruby guys afaik.
    - squam 6y ago
      Not popularity, but familiarity. You don’t have to play the odds if you already know what tools your team has experience with.
- rangoon626 6y ago
  I too have had experience after experience where every Ruby on Rails project in maintenance mode is a complete disaster. It seems like it’s great for quickly building things, but it is unmaintainable, unless you wrote the thing. I am very flexible otherwise, but Ruby on Rails is banned from any project I’m involved in.
  - rangoon626 6y ago
    To be clear, I would work on a ASP.NET WebForms project again before I ever touch another RoR project.
  - Glyptodon 6y ago
    My experience is the opposite - Rails projects tend to have tests and maintaining is easy because the test suite is end to end and means something. That said, Rails projects without tests aren't fun. Besides missing tests, I've also seen fat controllers, bad schema design, and not using Rubocop make more issues with maintenance, but usually I interpret as lack of understanding how to use Rails, not Rails being to blame.
- thinkingemote 6y ago
  > a) learning a brand new programming language, b) learning exotic frameworks, c) getting acquainted with ..language.., d) learning how to troubleshoot and debug ... applications, e) properly setup a software dev environment, and f) finally fix the issue. Applies with every language and framework one is not familiar with.
- joelbluminator 6y ago
  Holy crap! you were paid to work on a Rails app and you actually had to learn Ruby/Rails to get stuff done? The horror! I would seek compensation from my employer for that, not way is that legal.

by jspash 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rualca 6y ago

> (...) I’ll have mature teammates who understand the right tool for the right job. I Honest question: what leads you to believe that Ruby on Rails, or even Ruby, is the right tool for the right job? You didn't even mentioned the job, so why do you automatically assume Ruby is the right tool? Additionally, by ignoring popularity you're also ignoring availability of documentation and examples and mindshare. You're also ignoring experience, and prior onboarding into a language stack, which automatically means odds are anyone onboarding into the project will quickly be up and running. Speaking as someone who was forced to onboard into a Ruby project just because a predecessor jumped on the bandwagon, the experience was an unmitigated disaster. A minor onboarding task that consisted of tweaking a hard codes settin in a module required me and a couple of colleagues to spend a few days a) learning a brand new programming language, b) learning exotic frameworks, c) getting acquainted with idiomatic Ruby, d) learning how to troubleshoot and debug Ruby applications, e) properly setup a software dev environment, and f) finally fix the issue. If my predecessor opted to use Python instead of succumbing to bandwagons and resume-driven development practices, the same thing would take a couple of man/hours. How does can this sort of snafu pass off as the right tool for the right job?

derwiki 6y ago
It sounds like more than RoR. Anecdata counterpoint: I’ve worked on a few RoR projects that were well architected and only took me a few days to fully ramp up.
ysavir 6y ago
Sounds like this is less about whether RoR was the right tool for the job and more that no one other the implementer was familiar with Ruby/Rails (and maybe not even them). This might mean that this wasn't the right tool _for your team_, but it's not a comment on what jobs are a good fit with RoR.
- rualca 6y ago
  > Sounds like this is less about whether RoR was the right tool for the job and more that no one other the implementer was familiar with Ruby/Rails (and maybe not even them). Isn't that already an operational problem? I mean, consider the mental burden alone of being forced to onboard to a completely different and relatively obscure tech stack, including the quirky programming language that serves as it's base, and all just to keep a web service up and running.
realusername 6y ago
> If my predecessor opted to use Python instead of succumbing to bandwagons and resume-driven development practices, the same thing would take a couple of man/hours. That's my opinion but after maintaining some large Rails apps and large Django apps, I would still take Rails any day. Just the testing quality and the batteries included makes it worth it, whereas the main downsides of Rails (speed and lack of typing) are also there anyways on a Django project. That aside, if people building the project don't have any experience with what they are doing, it will be messy regardless of the framework or the language.
schnable 6y ago
If you knew Ruby and not the Python, the whole scenario would have been flipped.
- rualca 6y ago
  > If you knew Ruby and not the Python, the whole scenario would have been flipped. That's why popularity matters. The odds that any random kid already has experience with Python are far greater than him knowing Ruby.
  - ricketycricket 6y ago
    This was the argument for php in 2010.
  - joelbluminator 6y ago
    I get the point, it's not completely invalid. And still, calling Rails "obscure" is a stretch. In web dev world it's still a pretty dominant framework. There shouldn't really be any problem to hire Ruby guys afaik.
  - squam 6y ago
    Not popularity, but familiarity. You don’t have to play the odds if you already know what tools your team has experience with.
rangoon626 6y ago
I too have had experience after experience where every Ruby on Rails project in maintenance mode is a complete disaster. It seems like it’s great for quickly building things, but it is unmaintainable, unless you wrote the thing. I am very flexible otherwise, but Ruby on Rails is banned from any project I’m involved in.
- rangoon626 6y ago
  To be clear, I would work on a ASP.NET WebForms project again before I ever touch another RoR project.
- Glyptodon 6y ago
  My experience is the opposite - Rails projects tend to have tests and maintaining is easy because the test suite is end to end and means something. That said, Rails projects without tests aren't fun. Besides missing tests, I've also seen fat controllers, bad schema design, and not using Rubocop make more issues with maintenance, but usually I interpret as lack of understanding how to use Rails, not Rails being to blame.
thinkingemote 6y ago
> a) learning a brand new programming language, b) learning exotic frameworks, c) getting acquainted with ..language.., d) learning how to troubleshoot and debug ... applications, e) properly setup a software dev environment, and f) finally fix the issue. Applies with every language and framework one is not familiar with.
joelbluminator 6y ago
Holy crap! you were paid to work on a Rails app and you actually had to learn Ruby/Rails to get stuff done? The horror! I would seek compensation from my employer for that, not way is that legal.