5 ms·

I'm not sure any language + framework prioritizes developer happiness as much as Ruby on Rails.

by october8140 4mo ago

ch4s3 4mo ago
I get a similar feeling from Elixir and Phoenix without the method_missing foot gun.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
milch 4mo ago
I don't think I've ever been unhappier than working on a Rails project. See a bug on the site - something is rendering incorrectly. grep to find the view. Great, there's a method that is being called to render the buggy section. Grep for the method name - 0 hits. Amazing, it's something that is synthesized somewhere and I have no idea where. Guess I'll stop what I'm doing and read docs for an hour. If you do nothing but use Rails all day, sure, but the whole convention over configuration thing is such a huge anti pattern to me.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- craigmcnamara 4mo ago
  method(:name).source is your friend
  - chao- 4mo ago
    `method(:name).source_location`, but yes. Ruby is very introspect-able and it is fantastic.
- jimbokun 4mo ago
  I’ve had similar experiences with Spring Boot Java applications. Methods in stack traces that don’t exist in source code but are magicked into existence by annotations.
  - cyberpunk 4mo ago
    Hell with lombok it’s not even uncommon to have entire classes with no defined functions at all. shudder
  - lackoftactics 4mo ago
    Spring Boot is very similiar to Rails. That's what was surprising to me, when I was forced to use it at uni. The annotations magic brings all the PTSD of method missing from Ruby
- ramon156 4mo ago
  I would advice reading the "efficient rails" book, which explains a lot about how to debug RoR apps.
  - IshKebab 4mo ago
    The fact that you have to read a book and break out a debugger to do the equivalent of "find all" in any other languages should tell you something right? My experience is exactly the same as Milch's. I've tried to fix stuff in Gitlab but given up when I couldn't even find where it things are defined. That can happen in other languages, e.g. Rust or C where macros are used. But it's pretty much the exception there whereas in Rails it seems to be done by default.
    - milch 4mo ago
      Exactly. Sure, I can go read a book and learn about Rails. If I wanted to be a Rails specialist I probably would, but I don't want to be a Rails specialist. And like you said, other languages can do this too, but I haven't really found it to be too much of an issue. I remember one time where I had to break out whatever the rustc flag is that just produces the code with expanded macros, but that's it.
- xlii 4mo ago
  I won't be as harsh because I have years of experience in Rails and didn't develop harsh feelings against it but moving from Rust/Go/Zig/TypeScript (which I used lately) to Ruby ain't smooth ride. Discoverability is much worse, LSPs aren't super helpful. Using Dash (documentation app) helps a ton. Still some names are confusing after switch (took a minute to recall that 'filter' is actually 'select' in Ruby). I won't say that dev experience is bad but it's definitely different.
  - rsanheim 4mo ago
    filter is also just filter in ruby - aliased as select (and find_all) on Enumerable.
    - xlii 4mo ago
      facepalms Weird that searching for it didn't yield any results, though I stand corrected. However it seems that select is the actual "root" of documentation. Filter sends to find_all, find_all sends to filter or select.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- lackoftactics 4mo ago
  The worst part is communicating to the Ruby on Rails community that they have a problem with DX or that Rails is not really the top choice anymore for new startups. It's a cult of DHH. I am still mostly part of the Rails ghetto; it's paying my bills, but after gaining more experience during my computer science master's degree with statically typed languages, I clearly see the pitfalls of Ruby. People often miss the difference between simple and easy. Yes, Ruby is easy, but it's not simple, and it will make you suffer a lot if you get to a complex app. The debugging sessions in Rails are a nightmare. Meanwhile Ruby community is acting like religion, it's almost impossible to convert people from Ruby to other languages, they don't see the language as tool, but as part of their identity
  - drzaiusx11 4mo ago
    Maybe I'm just not tapped into the community but I've been a ruby developer going on 6 years now and I find debugging ruby apps no better or worse than any other languages I've worked with over the years. It's fairly easy to instrument ruby much like all the other dynamic languages (python3, js, etc) but with better ergonomics. My main qualm with ruby is their reliance on external type files for type annotations. What a terrible idea. Should have just done inline optional types like python3 or typescript.
jimbokun 4mo ago
I’m sure the LLM that translated the code was ecstatic!
jdkoeck 4mo ago
It’s short term happiness at best, and at the expense of every other possible architectural characteristic (maintainability, performance, reliability, scalability, you name it).
- Gigachad 4mo ago
  Updating Rails is one of the most painful processes ever. There is no real way to be sure it works. You just have to have 50,000 unit tests, cypress tests, and then hope and pray. On any sufficiently large and old app, something will always break in a way that isn't caught by your tests or manual testing, and only shows up after it goes out live.
  - flats 4mo ago
    Honest question: what’s an example of a fully-featured web framework that makes upgrading a “large & old” application painless? In my experience, upgrading an underlying framework that a piece of complex software depends upon without breaking everything pretty much always requires time & good test coverage.
    - pjmlp 4mo ago
      Most Java and .NET ones, not everything breaks, statically compiled, so not as many unit tests required as in dynamic languages. While it is deprecated, you can do a File=>New Project for Web Forms in 2026.
      - pmontra 4mo ago
        Why do many people mention the need of tests for types in dynamically typed languages? In Rails my tests are mostly to ensure that a request to a controller returns the expected response and the expected changes in the database. Unit tests are often on validations and the errors they return for invalid data. Then there are functional tests that drive a headless browser.
        4mo ago
tobyhinloopen 4mo ago
Rails is the worst. It’s so easy to make a mess and it’s hard to debug.
pjmlp 4mo ago
I have been pretty happy with Java and .NET frameworks, regardless of the lack of appeal in SV influenced circles. Happiness doesn't always translate into performance, e.g. famous Twitter logo until they moved into JVM and Scala. While Ruby on Rails took the fame, we already had similar experiences with AOLServer and Vignette, using Tcl. We had our own variant at a Portuguese startup, and eventually the founders created OutSystems, one of the first graphical RAD tools for Websites and distributed systems development in low code/no code, targeting JVM or CLR infrastructure. Now having said all of this, it is great to finally see CRuby getting a JIT in the box.
thunderbong 4mo ago
Ruby? Yes. Rails? Depends on the project.
gobdovan 4mo ago
For me it surely is Python with Pytorch, if we talk about frameworks in general. For web, I can't really offer any useful positive input, I was never satisfied with any framework for Python or Node. I see people praise RoR and Phoenix quite a lot tho!

I'm not sure any language + framework prioritizes developer happiness as much as Ruby on Rails.

ch4s3 4mo ago

I get a similar feeling from Elixir and Phoenix without the method_missing foot gun.

deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]

milch 4mo ago

I don't think I've ever been unhappier than working on a Rails project. See a bug on the site - something is rendering incorrectly. grep to find the view. Great, there's a method that is being called to render the buggy section. Grep for the method name - 0 hits. Amazing, it's something that is synthesized somewhere and I have no idea where. Guess I'll stop what I'm doing and read docs for an hour. If you do nothing but use Rails all day, sure, but the whole convention over configuration thing is such a huge anti pattern to me.

deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
craigmcnamara 4mo ago
method(:name).source is your friend
- chao- 4mo ago
  `method(:name).source_location`, but yes. Ruby is very introspect-able and it is fantastic.
jimbokun 4mo ago
I’ve had similar experiences with Spring Boot Java applications. Methods in stack traces that don’t exist in source code but are magicked into existence by annotations.
- cyberpunk 4mo ago
  Hell with lombok it’s not even uncommon to have entire classes with no defined functions at all. shudder
- lackoftactics 4mo ago
  Spring Boot is very similiar to Rails. That's what was surprising to me, when I was forced to use it at uni. The annotations magic brings all the PTSD of method missing from Ruby
ramon156 4mo ago
I would advice reading the "efficient rails" book, which explains a lot about how to debug RoR apps.
- IshKebab 4mo ago
  The fact that you have to read a book and break out a debugger to do the equivalent of "find all" in any other languages should tell you something right? My experience is exactly the same as Milch's. I've tried to fix stuff in Gitlab but given up when I couldn't even find where it things are defined. That can happen in other languages, e.g. Rust or C where macros are used. But it's pretty much the exception there whereas in Rails it seems to be done by default.
  - milch 4mo ago
    Exactly. Sure, I can go read a book and learn about Rails. If I wanted to be a Rails specialist I probably would, but I don't want to be a Rails specialist. And like you said, other languages can do this too, but I haven't really found it to be too much of an issue. I remember one time where I had to break out whatever the rustc flag is that just produces the code with expanded macros, but that's it.
xlii 4mo ago
I won't be as harsh because I have years of experience in Rails and didn't develop harsh feelings against it but moving from Rust/Go/Zig/TypeScript (which I used lately) to Ruby ain't smooth ride. Discoverability is much worse, LSPs aren't super helpful. Using Dash (documentation app) helps a ton. Still some names are confusing after switch (took a minute to recall that 'filter' is actually 'select' in Ruby). I won't say that dev experience is bad but it's definitely different.
- rsanheim 4mo ago
  filter is also just filter in ruby - aliased as select (and find_all) on Enumerable.
  - xlii 4mo ago
    facepalms Weird that searching for it didn't yield any results, though I stand corrected. However it seems that select is the actual "root" of documentation. Filter sends to find_all, find_all sends to filter or select.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
lackoftactics 4mo ago
The worst part is communicating to the Ruby on Rails community that they have a problem with DX or that Rails is not really the top choice anymore for new startups. It's a cult of DHH. I am still mostly part of the Rails ghetto; it's paying my bills, but after gaining more experience during my computer science master's degree with statically typed languages, I clearly see the pitfalls of Ruby. People often miss the difference between simple and easy. Yes, Ruby is easy, but it's not simple, and it will make you suffer a lot if you get to a complex app. The debugging sessions in Rails are a nightmare. Meanwhile Ruby community is acting like religion, it's almost impossible to convert people from Ruby to other languages, they don't see the language as tool, but as part of their identity
- drzaiusx11 4mo ago
  Maybe I'm just not tapped into the community but I've been a ruby developer going on 6 years now and I find debugging ruby apps no better or worse than any other languages I've worked with over the years. It's fairly easy to instrument ruby much like all the other dynamic languages (python3, js, etc) but with better ergonomics. My main qualm with ruby is their reliance on external type files for type annotations. What a terrible idea. Should have just done inline optional types like python3 or typescript.

jimbokun 4mo ago

I’m sure the LLM that translated the code was ecstatic!

jdkoeck 4mo ago

It’s short term happiness at best, and at the expense of every other possible architectural characteristic (maintainability, performance, reliability, scalability, you name it).

Gigachad 4mo ago
Updating Rails is one of the most painful processes ever. There is no real way to be sure it works. You just have to have 50,000 unit tests, cypress tests, and then hope and pray. On any sufficiently large and old app, something will always break in a way that isn't caught by your tests or manual testing, and only shows up after it goes out live.
- flats 4mo ago
  Honest question: what’s an example of a fully-featured web framework that makes upgrading a “large & old” application painless? In my experience, upgrading an underlying framework that a piece of complex software depends upon without breaking everything pretty much always requires time & good test coverage.
  - pjmlp 4mo ago
    Most Java and .NET ones, not everything breaks, statically compiled, so not as many unit tests required as in dynamic languages. While it is deprecated, you can do a File=>New Project for Web Forms in 2026.
    - pmontra 4mo ago
      Why do many people mention the need of tests for types in dynamically typed languages? In Rails my tests are mostly to ensure that a request to a controller returns the expected response and the expected changes in the database. Unit tests are often on validations and the errors they return for invalid data. Then there are functional tests that drive a headless browser.
      - 4mo ago

tobyhinloopen 4mo ago

Rails is the worst. It’s so easy to make a mess and it’s hard to debug.

pjmlp 4mo ago

I have been pretty happy with Java and .NET frameworks, regardless of the lack of appeal in SV influenced circles. Happiness doesn't always translate into performance, e.g. famous Twitter logo until they moved into JVM and Scala. While Ruby on Rails took the fame, we already had similar experiences with AOLServer and Vignette, using Tcl. We had our own variant at a Portuguese startup, and eventually the founders created OutSystems, one of the first graphical RAD tools for Websites and distributed systems development in low code/no code, targeting JVM or CLR infrastructure. Now having said all of this, it is great to finally see CRuby getting a JIT in the box.

thunderbong 4mo ago

Ruby? Yes. Rails? Depends on the project.

gobdovan 4mo ago

For me it surely is Python with Pytorch, if we talk about frameworks in general. For web, I can't really offer any useful positive input, I was never satisfied with any framework for Python or Node. I see people praise RoR and Phoenix quite a lot tho!