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Essential Tools for Starting a Rails App in 2013

69 points by zrail 13y ago

willbill 13y ago
I might add the pry gem to that list. It has a pretty robust community around it and it can help when debugging hairy code.
colszowka 13y ago
Some additions: * The better_errors/meta_request/binding_of_caller combo for error pages with in-browser REPL and for Rails Panel chrome dev tools tab * foreman for launching processes * pry as a debugging tool * lograge/quiet_assets for cleaner log files As the project author, I will not include simplecov here, but I would normally drop that in there too ;)
- zrail 13y ago
  That first one is pretty neat. Here's a RailsCast I found about it: http://railscasts.com/episodes/402-better-errors-railspanel?view=asciicast http://railscasts.com/episodes/402-better-errors-railspanel?.... Foreman is something I use every day and I didn't even think to include it, thanks.
- ZirconCode 13y ago
  Was going to mention the better_errors gem group as well, it's the first thing I put into my project. It helps a ton, especially as a beginner.
- shadykiller 13y ago
  Have you tried Logstasher ? https://github.com/shadabahmed/logstasher https://github.com/shadabahmed/logstasher Asking because I wrote it .. giggle :)
riffraff 13y ago
My personal additions: * CanCan for authorization (it also integrates nicely with devise) * webmock for testing (because sooner or later I always end up with some slow network call in tests)
- janus 13y ago
  I've grown to like Authority more than Cancan. It does 'less' magic but it's way more declarative and allows you to be really explicit on what you want to check.
rubiquity 13y ago
I view Devise, CanCan and SimpleForm as unnecessary gems these days. Rails has better facilities for all the things those three gems provide. If you take a little time to create your own login or auth system you'll be much better off than inheriting the bloat that gems like CanCan and Devise add to your code base. I could flip a coin on whether SimpleForm is still useful or not. I tend to find myself fighting with its method signatures so I don't really like it. All in all, Rails has grown since these gems were created. Use the new facilities that Rails provides as well as some OO design to solve problems. It's much better than including fat gems like the three I mention above into your code base.
- zrail 13y ago
  (author here) I guess I view Rails as a tool with which to get things done, and usually rolling my own login or auth system is not within scope of the work I want to get done. I'd rather just use something off the shelf and proceed with the itch I want to scratch. You also get the benefit of lots of eyes on that part of your code base, which means bugs get found and fixed more quickly.
  - luikore 13y ago
    My experience: it's incredibly easier to NOT use devise. I've wasted so much time reading and hacking devise source code, while the result is slower and more vulnerable than rolling my own. It does a simple job, but there are too much code to make it compatible with many rubies and operating systems and older versions of rails that I will never use.
- jdminhbg 13y ago
  Rather than completely rolling my own, I like to use Sorcery[1] for authorization now. It concentrates on providing the bare minimum that every app absolutely needs, making it much easier to build on top of than Devise, where you're constantly searching around their codebase trying to figure out what they provide and how to override it. I still don't get why people use these form helper gems. In every single project I've worked on that used them, we've spent more time fighting them in complex cases than we saved in potentially repetitive simple cases. [1] https://github.com/NoamB/sorcery https://github.com/NoamB/sorcery
andrew_wc_brown 13y ago
I purchased the Payment Gateway book and regretted it. The only essential tool I see on the list is Sidekiq and the rest is just bloat.
- zrail 13y ago
  If you'd like, you can email me any specific problems you had with it and I'll see what I can do about making future versions better. pete@bugsplat.info
- michaelbuckbee 13y ago
  I really liked Pete's book - to the point, and let me get going quickly. I think it can be hard to accurately judge the value of something as focused as a book that is so specifically targeted. In particular, I feel like the book gets you to a complete end to end Rails+Stripe.js system much much faster than I could have cobbling everything together myself.
instakill 13y ago
I use 1 of those. Essential is a bit of a stretch.
vially 13y ago
I was looking for a dotenv alternative for the shell (fish preferably) but I couldn't find any so I wrote my own [1]. Does anyone know any alternatives? [1] - https://github.com/vially/fish-config/blob/master/modules/autoenv/autoenv.fish https://github.com/vially/fish-config/blob/master/modules/au...
WestCoastJustin 13y ago
Anyone interested in learning more about Devise [1], Breakman [2], Simple Form [3], or Sidekiq [4], should check out RailsCasts [5]. Ryan Bates, who runs RailsCasts, has screencast episodes on all of these. With 400+ episodes, if you have an idea, he has most likely done a tutorial that will walk you through the implementation, this is invaluable for everyone from newbie to experienced, in that it will likely save you lots of time. ps. Using Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial [6], and Ryan Bates's RailsCasts, I was able to go from zero knowledge about rails, to implementing CRUD apps [7] in a couple weeks. As a side note, I things these two resources show the power of internet/distance learning. [1] http://railscasts.com/episodes/209-devise-revised http://railscasts.com/episodes/209-devise-revised [2] http://railscasts.com/episodes/358-brakeman http://railscasts.com/episodes/358-brakeman [3] http://railscasts.com/episodes/234-simple-form-revised http://railscasts.com/episodes/234-simple-form-revised [4] http://railscasts.com/episodes/366-sidekiq http://railscasts.com/episodes/366-sidekiq [5] http://railscasts.com/ http://railscasts.com/ [6] http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ [7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Create,_read,_update_and_delete http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Create,_read,_update_and_delete
purephase 13y ago
I echo some of the sentiment that some of these gems provide, but they are quite helpful in getting a quick project up and running in a few minutes to start playing around. Some of my favorites: figaro[1] Alternative to dotenv, awesome mascot. rack-mini-profiler[2] Often folks will say to save performance tuning until the end. I find having this around from the get go makes it much easier to do as you move along. I love sidekiq though. Probably the best on the list. Background queues are essential to most, if not all Rails applications. The goworker post from today looks interesting too. [1] https://github.com/laserlemon/figaro https://github.com/laserlemon/figaro [2] https://github.com/MiniProfiler/rack-mini-profiler https://github.com/MiniProfiler/rack-mini-profiler
aaronbrethorst 13y ago
Haml because writing HTML sucks. Bcrypt-ruby and the built in auth stuff because I find Devise too inflexible. strip_attributes to clean up user inputs VCR to speed up tests involving 3rd party services foreman to control processes and automatically support dotenv.
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evilduck 13y ago
Peek and its various plugins are pretty nice in development. Let's you easily see what and where your slow points are as you click around the site. https://github.com/peek/peek https://github.com/peek/peek
benbruscella 13y ago
* capistrano for deployments * exception_notification for email notifications * state_machine for, well, state machines * pg_search for simple postgresql searching * premailer-rails for html emails * whenever for cron jobs * backup for a backup dsl, useful with whenever
- tilsammans 13y ago
  Interesting to see backup mentioned. I've used it in the past, but kind of forgot about it. It's super useful. The documentation tells you to not put it into Gemfile, but it seems like you really should. Do you?

69 points by zrail 13y ago

I might add the pry gem to that list. It has a pretty robust community around it and it can help when debugging hairy code.

colszowka 13y ago

Some additions: * The better_errors/meta_request/binding_of_caller combo for error pages with in-browser REPL and for Rails Panel chrome dev tools tab * foreman for launching processes * pry as a debugging tool * lograge/quiet_assets for cleaner log files As the project author, I will not include simplecov here, but I would normally drop that in there too ;)

zrail 13y ago
That first one is pretty neat. Here's a RailsCast I found about it: http://railscasts.com/episodes/402-better-errors-railspanel?view=asciicast http://railscasts.com/episodes/402-better-errors-railspanel?.... Foreman is something I use every day and I didn't even think to include it, thanks.
ZirconCode 13y ago
Was going to mention the better_errors gem group as well, it's the first thing I put into my project. It helps a ton, especially as a beginner.
shadykiller 13y ago
Have you tried Logstasher ? https://github.com/shadabahmed/logstasher https://github.com/shadabahmed/logstasher Asking because I wrote it .. giggle :)

riffraff 13y ago

My personal additions: * CanCan for authorization (it also integrates nicely with devise) * webmock for testing (because sooner or later I always end up with some slow network call in tests)

janus 13y ago
I've grown to like Authority more than Cancan. It does 'less' magic but it's way more declarative and allows you to be really explicit on what you want to check.

rubiquity 13y ago

I view Devise, CanCan and SimpleForm as unnecessary gems these days. Rails has better facilities for all the things those three gems provide. If you take a little time to create your own login or auth system you'll be much better off than inheriting the bloat that gems like CanCan and Devise add to your code base. I could flip a coin on whether SimpleForm is still useful or not. I tend to find myself fighting with its method signatures so I don't really like it. All in all, Rails has grown since these gems were created. Use the new facilities that Rails provides as well as some OO design to solve problems. It's much better than including fat gems like the three I mention above into your code base.

zrail 13y ago
(author here) I guess I view Rails as a tool with which to get things done, and usually rolling my own login or auth system is not within scope of the work I want to get done. I'd rather just use something off the shelf and proceed with the itch I want to scratch. You also get the benefit of lots of eyes on that part of your code base, which means bugs get found and fixed more quickly.
- luikore 13y ago
  My experience: it's incredibly easier to NOT use devise. I've wasted so much time reading and hacking devise source code, while the result is slower and more vulnerable than rolling my own. It does a simple job, but there are too much code to make it compatible with many rubies and operating systems and older versions of rails that I will never use.
jdminhbg 13y ago
Rather than completely rolling my own, I like to use Sorcery[1] for authorization now. It concentrates on providing the bare minimum that every app absolutely needs, making it much easier to build on top of than Devise, where you're constantly searching around their codebase trying to figure out what they provide and how to override it. I still don't get why people use these form helper gems. In every single project I've worked on that used them, we've spent more time fighting them in complex cases than we saved in potentially repetitive simple cases. [1] https://github.com/NoamB/sorcery https://github.com/NoamB/sorcery

andrew_wc_brown 13y ago

I purchased the Payment Gateway book and regretted it. The only essential tool I see on the list is Sidekiq and the rest is just bloat.

zrail 13y ago
If you'd like, you can email me any specific problems you had with it and I'll see what I can do about making future versions better. pete@bugsplat.info
michaelbuckbee 13y ago
I really liked Pete's book - to the point, and let me get going quickly. I think it can be hard to accurately judge the value of something as focused as a book that is so specifically targeted. In particular, I feel like the book gets you to a complete end to end Rails+Stripe.js system much much faster than I could have cobbling everything together myself.

instakill 13y ago

I use 1 of those. Essential is a bit of a stretch.

vially 13y ago

I was looking for a dotenv alternative for the shell (fish preferably) but I couldn't find any so I wrote my own [1]. Does anyone know any alternatives? [1] - https://github.com/vially/fish-config/blob/master/modules/autoenv/autoenv.fish https://github.com/vially/fish-config/blob/master/modules/au...

WestCoastJustin 13y ago

Anyone interested in learning more about Devise [1], Breakman [2], Simple Form [3], or Sidekiq [4], should check out RailsCasts [5]. Ryan Bates, who runs RailsCasts, has screencast episodes on all of these. With 400+ episodes, if you have an idea, he has most likely done a tutorial that will walk you through the implementation, this is invaluable for everyone from newbie to experienced, in that it will likely save you lots of time. ps. Using Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial [6], and Ryan Bates's RailsCasts, I was able to go from zero knowledge about rails, to implementing CRUD apps [7] in a couple weeks. As a side note, I things these two resources show the power of internet/distance learning. [1] http://railscasts.com/episodes/209-devise-revised http://railscasts.com/episodes/209-devise-revised [2] http://railscasts.com/episodes/358-brakeman http://railscasts.com/episodes/358-brakeman [3] http://railscasts.com/episodes/234-simple-form-revised http://railscasts.com/episodes/234-simple-form-revised [4] http://railscasts.com/episodes/366-sidekiq http://railscasts.com/episodes/366-sidekiq [5] http://railscasts.com/ http://railscasts.com/ [6] http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ [7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Create,_read,_update_and_delete http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Create,_read,_update_and_delete

purephase 13y ago

I echo some of the sentiment that some of these gems provide, but they are quite helpful in getting a quick project up and running in a few minutes to start playing around. Some of my favorites: figaro[1] Alternative to dotenv, awesome mascot. rack-mini-profiler[2] Often folks will say to save performance tuning until the end. I find having this around from the get go makes it much easier to do as you move along. I love sidekiq though. Probably the best on the list. Background queues are essential to most, if not all Rails applications. The goworker post from today looks interesting too. [1] https://github.com/laserlemon/figaro https://github.com/laserlemon/figaro [2] https://github.com/MiniProfiler/rack-mini-profiler https://github.com/MiniProfiler/rack-mini-profiler

aaronbrethorst 13y ago

Haml because writing HTML sucks. Bcrypt-ruby and the built in auth stuff because I find Devise too inflexible. strip_attributes to clean up user inputs VCR to speed up tests involving 3rd party services foreman to control processes and automatically support dotenv.

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evilduck 13y ago

Peek and its various plugins are pretty nice in development. Let's you easily see what and where your slow points are as you click around the site. https://github.com/peek/peek https://github.com/peek/peek

benbruscella 13y ago

* capistrano for deployments * exception_notification for email notifications * state_machine for, well, state machines * pg_search for simple postgresql searching * premailer-rails for html emails * whenever for cron jobs * backup for a backup dsl, useful with whenever

tilsammans 13y ago
Interesting to see backup mentioned. I've used it in the past, but kind of forgot about it. It's super useful. The documentation tells you to not put it into Gemfile, but it seems like you really should. Do you?