7 ms·

Rails API is coming to Rails 5

126 points by colinbartlett 12y ago

grandalf 12y ago
There is also sinatra, which has had a stable API for years.
- sparaker 12y ago
  Rails has bigger community and they are pioneers for alot of things that each new framework takes inspiration from. Practically i think ruby wasn't going to be this famous without rails. So its cool that Sinatra had it early on, but now we have it in rails.
- ad_hominem 12y ago
  Not really: https://twitter.com/maccaw/status/576437511729221632 https://twitter.com/maccaw/status/576437511729221632 If you want true stability you probably have to switch to a language with a stronger type system. That Sinatra bug proves that even small codebases can suffer from basic type errors.
  - grandalf 12y ago
    uh, it appears that a chance to Rack's API caused that bug, no?
    - beat 12y ago
      Same problem, though. Ruby's dynamic typing comes with some wonderful advantages (yay metaprogramming!) but some pretty bad disadvantages as well.
      - grandalf 12y ago
        Definitely. I like things like contracts and optional type annotations very much. Some code is just hard to understand without those kinds of things, which leads to bugs.
  - pjonesdotca 12y ago
    Actually a good testing suite fixes that issue. It's probably the most bogus "issue" strong type addicts bring up.
    - jallmann 12y ago
      The only thing better than having tests is not needing tests. That's what a robust type system gives you. Type systems don't eliminate all testing, but they do eliminate a large swath of possible errors that need to be tested for, like the one that has (had?) been afflicting Sinatra.
      - erokar 12y ago
        You might want to watch this talk for some data on this subject: https://vimeo.com/74354480 https://vimeo.com/74354480 "Some programming language theorists would have us believe that the one true path to working systems lies in powerful and expressive type systems which allow us to encode rich constraints into programs at the time they are created. If these academic computer scientists would get out more, they would soon discover an increasing incidence of software developed in languages such a Python, Ruby and Clojure which use dynamic, albeit strong, type systems. They would probably be surprised to find that much of this software—in spite of their well-founded type-theoretic hubris—actually works, and is indeed reliable out of all proportion to their expectations."
        counterplex 12y ago
        The politest put down ever?
        ssmoot 12y ago
        As someone who worked with Ruby since ~1.8.1, has written a ridiculous amount of OSS Ruby and now works mostly in Scala, this is the exact opposite of my experience. YMMV, but I've never seen the Ruby project that didn't suffer from stupid bugs even the most basic type system would have caught. One of the biggest advantage of type-systems for me is that they don't suffer from No True Scotsman. If you don't have a test that covered this bug, people are happy to tell you you're doing it wrong. The type-system doesn't have that problem. It doesn't "rot". It expresses only what you tell it to. It enforces maintenance and rigor in a way that tests, as non-integral code, fundamentally can't. But that's just my opinion man.
- paulbjensen 12y ago
  Let's not forget Grape either: https://github.com/intridea/grape https://github.com/intridea/grape You could see this move towards JSON APIs way back in 2012 as I suggested here: http://paulbjensen.co.uk/posts/2012/07/11/thoughts-on-rails-node-and-the-web-apps-of-today http://paulbjensen.co.uk/posts/2012/07/11/thoughts-on-rails-.... Some poo-pooed the notion, but you can clearly see that the popularity of realtime frameworks and the way that apps are built client-side heavy is pulling Rails in this direction. Performance is still the key factor here, and I suspect that's half the reason why you've got some people who espoused Ruby in the past now playing with other languages beginning with Ru, but that have a much less friendly syntax compared to Ruby. Some welcome changes though nonetheless, especially on the WebSockets front.
- beat 12y ago
  I've recently switched from Sinatra to Grape for pure REST microservice development. Grape does a lot of things that turn into wasteful boilerplate in Sinatra. Haven't gotten far enough with it to find the downsides yet. I've down API dev in Rails too, but it really feels like killing a fly with a hammer sometimes. And as I shift strongly to microservices (thanks Docker!), I want my API code to be as minimalist as possible. Grape/Sequel feels simple, which is good.
  - grandalf 12y ago
    > Grape does a lot of things that turn into wasteful boilerplate in Sinatra Would love to see a few examples > I've down API dev in Rails too, but it really feels like killing a fly with a hammer sometimes More like creating a few extra layers of abstraction to confuse the fly.
steveklabnik 12y ago
Context: https://rubygems.org/gems/rails-api https://rubygems.org/gems/rails-api This gem was created because this feature was going to be in Rails a few years back, but was pulled out by DHH before release. But, as you can see, he's cool with it now.
- mparramon 12y ago
  Why was it pulled before release?
  - steveklabnik 12y ago
    It's been a very long time, so I don't remember the specifics, to be honest.
scott_o 12y ago
This provides some more context: http://wyeworks.com/blog/2015/4/20/rails-api-is-going-to-be-included-in-rails-5/ http://wyeworks.com/blog/2015/4/20/rails-api-is-going-to-be-...
jfaucett 12y ago
IMHO this is nice code, nothing against the devs, but I just don't see why its getting added. As someone who has built lots of rails apis, I don't really see any benefit other than perhaps speeding up bootstrapping. But as is, right now its incredibly easy in rails to require the action-X packages you want and setup middleware how you like it. Maybe I'm missing something though...
- steveklabnik 12y ago
  There's a lengthy explanation here: https://github.com/rails-api/rails-api#why-use-rails-for-json-apis https://github.com/rails-api/rails-api#why-use-rails-for-jso... EDIT: sorry, I mis-read your post. This is just "Why Rails and not Sinatra," not "this is easy enough to do on its own, why bother." I wasn't directly involved in the decision, so I cant' tell you, to be honest.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - catshirt 12y ago
    this justifies the library's existence but does not justify it's inclusion upstream.
    - 1qaz2wsx3edc 12y ago
      Because Rails has become bloatware and has been since they lost sight of the future of the web and stagnated on innovating...
      - scient 12y ago
        Care to elaborate?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- anonova 12y ago
andyl 12y ago
What is the best Rails solution for javascript modules and package management these days??
- geoffharcourt 12y ago
  I've used a few different approaches, and Rails-Assets works really well both from an ease-of-use and dependency version management standpoint.
- eggbrain 12y ago
  Probably https://rails-assets.org/ https://rails-assets.org/, you add it as a source in your Gemfile and then add gems based on the scheme "gem 'rails-assets-BOWER_PACKAGE_NAME'"
- kennethtransier 12y ago
  I'm a huge fan of https://rails-assets.org/ https://rails-assets.org/. Requests components from the Bower registry and packages them as gems.
- grandalf 12y ago
  I recommend just using webpack or browserify... the workflow supports super fast on-the-fly bundling. Most reasonably large Rails apps end up embedding v8 anyway.
wiremine 12y ago
Like the concept, but the name is confusing. I get it is coming from a separate gem, but hopefully it is renamed to convey what the intent is.
ludicast 12y ago
I love this. I find that Rails-API sometimes does/needs some screwy stuff because it has to be 2nd class citizen. This promotion of it is great news because it will obviously be kept in sync way better. Regardless, SPAs are fast becoming the best way to develop and this sort of thing (rather than the bandaid of turbolinks) gives me a lot of hope for the future of rails. I can even see rails eventually replacing views with a presenter layer (though something like that would probably wait for 6). Reminds me of what someone once said about America: "they always do the right thing, after exhausting all other possibilities".
ksec 12y ago
I dont have time for the Video, has anyone written a post on what's coming in Rails 5 yet? ( Apart from Rails API )

126 points by colinbartlett 12y ago

grandalf 12y ago

There is also sinatra, which has had a stable API for years.

sparaker 12y ago
Rails has bigger community and they are pioneers for alot of things that each new framework takes inspiration from. Practically i think ruby wasn't going to be this famous without rails. So its cool that Sinatra had it early on, but now we have it in rails.
ad_hominem 12y ago
Not really: https://twitter.com/maccaw/status/576437511729221632 https://twitter.com/maccaw/status/576437511729221632 If you want true stability you probably have to switch to a language with a stronger type system. That Sinatra bug proves that even small codebases can suffer from basic type errors.
- grandalf 12y ago
  uh, it appears that a chance to Rack's API caused that bug, no?
  - beat 12y ago
    Same problem, though. Ruby's dynamic typing comes with some wonderful advantages (yay metaprogramming!) but some pretty bad disadvantages as well.
    - grandalf 12y ago
      Definitely. I like things like contracts and optional type annotations very much. Some code is just hard to understand without those kinds of things, which leads to bugs.
- pjonesdotca 12y ago
  Actually a good testing suite fixes that issue. It's probably the most bogus "issue" strong type addicts bring up.
  - jallmann 12y ago
    The only thing better than having tests is not needing tests. That's what a robust type system gives you. Type systems don't eliminate all testing, but they do eliminate a large swath of possible errors that need to be tested for, like the one that has (had?) been afflicting Sinatra.
    - erokar 12y ago
      You might want to watch this talk for some data on this subject: https://vimeo.com/74354480 https://vimeo.com/74354480 "Some programming language theorists would have us believe that the one true path to working systems lies in powerful and expressive type systems which allow us to encode rich constraints into programs at the time they are created. If these academic computer scientists would get out more, they would soon discover an increasing incidence of software developed in languages such a Python, Ruby and Clojure which use dynamic, albeit strong, type systems. They would probably be surprised to find that much of this software—in spite of their well-founded type-theoretic hubris—actually works, and is indeed reliable out of all proportion to their expectations."
      - counterplex 12y ago
        The politest put down ever?
      - ssmoot 12y ago
        As someone who worked with Ruby since ~1.8.1, has written a ridiculous amount of OSS Ruby and now works mostly in Scala, this is the exact opposite of my experience. YMMV, but I've never seen the Ruby project that didn't suffer from stupid bugs even the most basic type system would have caught. One of the biggest advantage of type-systems for me is that they don't suffer from No True Scotsman. If you don't have a test that covered this bug, people are happy to tell you you're doing it wrong. The type-system doesn't have that problem. It doesn't "rot". It expresses only what you tell it to. It enforces maintenance and rigor in a way that tests, as non-integral code, fundamentally can't. But that's just my opinion man.
paulbjensen 12y ago
Let's not forget Grape either: https://github.com/intridea/grape https://github.com/intridea/grape You could see this move towards JSON APIs way back in 2012 as I suggested here: http://paulbjensen.co.uk/posts/2012/07/11/thoughts-on-rails-node-and-the-web-apps-of-today http://paulbjensen.co.uk/posts/2012/07/11/thoughts-on-rails-.... Some poo-pooed the notion, but you can clearly see that the popularity of realtime frameworks and the way that apps are built client-side heavy is pulling Rails in this direction. Performance is still the key factor here, and I suspect that's half the reason why you've got some people who espoused Ruby in the past now playing with other languages beginning with Ru, but that have a much less friendly syntax compared to Ruby. Some welcome changes though nonetheless, especially on the WebSockets front.
beat 12y ago
I've recently switched from Sinatra to Grape for pure REST microservice development. Grape does a lot of things that turn into wasteful boilerplate in Sinatra. Haven't gotten far enough with it to find the downsides yet. I've down API dev in Rails too, but it really feels like killing a fly with a hammer sometimes. And as I shift strongly to microservices (thanks Docker!), I want my API code to be as minimalist as possible. Grape/Sequel feels simple, which is good.
- grandalf 12y ago
  > Grape does a lot of things that turn into wasteful boilerplate in Sinatra Would love to see a few examples > I've down API dev in Rails too, but it really feels like killing a fly with a hammer sometimes More like creating a few extra layers of abstraction to confuse the fly.

steveklabnik 12y ago

Context: https://rubygems.org/gems/rails-api https://rubygems.org/gems/rails-api This gem was created because this feature was going to be in Rails a few years back, but was pulled out by DHH before release. But, as you can see, he's cool with it now.

mparramon 12y ago
Why was it pulled before release?
- steveklabnik 12y ago
  It's been a very long time, so I don't remember the specifics, to be honest.

scott_o 12y ago

This provides some more context: http://wyeworks.com/blog/2015/4/20/rails-api-is-going-to-be-included-in-rails-5/ http://wyeworks.com/blog/2015/4/20/rails-api-is-going-to-be-...

jfaucett 12y ago

IMHO this is nice code, nothing against the devs, but I just don't see why its getting added. As someone who has built lots of rails apis, I don't really see any benefit other than perhaps speeding up bootstrapping. But as is, right now its incredibly easy in rails to require the action-X packages you want and setup middleware how you like it. Maybe I'm missing something though...

steveklabnik 12y ago
There's a lengthy explanation here: https://github.com/rails-api/rails-api#why-use-rails-for-json-apis https://github.com/rails-api/rails-api#why-use-rails-for-jso... EDIT: sorry, I mis-read your post. This is just "Why Rails and not Sinatra," not "this is easy enough to do on its own, why bother." I wasn't directly involved in the decision, so I cant' tell you, to be honest.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- catshirt 12y ago
  this justifies the library's existence but does not justify it's inclusion upstream.
  - 1qaz2wsx3edc 12y ago
    Because Rails has become bloatware and has been since they lost sight of the future of the web and stagnated on innovating...
    - scient 12y ago
      Care to elaborate?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
anonova 12y ago

andyl 12y ago

What is the best Rails solution for javascript modules and package management these days??

geoffharcourt 12y ago
I've used a few different approaches, and Rails-Assets works really well both from an ease-of-use and dependency version management standpoint.
eggbrain 12y ago
Probably https://rails-assets.org/ https://rails-assets.org/, you add it as a source in your Gemfile and then add gems based on the scheme "gem 'rails-assets-BOWER_PACKAGE_NAME'"
kennethtransier 12y ago
I'm a huge fan of https://rails-assets.org/ https://rails-assets.org/. Requests components from the Bower registry and packages them as gems.
grandalf 12y ago
I recommend just using webpack or browserify... the workflow supports super fast on-the-fly bundling. Most reasonably large Rails apps end up embedding v8 anyway.

wiremine 12y ago

Like the concept, but the name is confusing. I get it is coming from a separate gem, but hopefully it is renamed to convey what the intent is.

ludicast 12y ago

I love this. I find that Rails-API sometimes does/needs some screwy stuff because it has to be 2nd class citizen. This promotion of it is great news because it will obviously be kept in sync way better. Regardless, SPAs are fast becoming the best way to develop and this sort of thing (rather than the bandaid of turbolinks) gives me a lot of hope for the future of rails. I can even see rails eventually replacing views with a presenter layer (though something like that would probably wait for 6). Reminds me of what someone once said about America: "they always do the right thing, after exhausting all other possibilities".

ksec 12y ago

I dont have time for the Video, has anyone written a post on what's coming in Rails 5 yet? ( Apart from Rails API )