Comments on Andrzej on Software: How can Rails react to the rise of the JavaScript applications?

I took some time to hack with Opal yesterday. It&#...

2014-01-02T13:13:55.446+01:00

I took some time to hack with Opal yesterday. It's not fully stable yet, but it has a fantastic vision behind it.

I didn't try Vienna, but the idea of using Ruby on the frontend is quite appealing.

It may be a new direction for Rails devs :)

I would like to see Opal http://opalrb.org and its...

2014-01-02T13:11:57.910+01:00

I would like to see Opal http://opalrb.org and its framework vienna

For anyone interested in a subject of Rails direct...

2014-01-01T19:17:05.849+01:00

For anyone interested in a subject of Rails direction in context of new approaches to web development, I wrote a blog post as a response to "Rails should fundamentally change": http://piotrsarnacki.com/2014/01/01/i-am-tired-by-rails-should-fundamentally-change-crowd/

Hey Patrick, good to see you again :) You're ...

2013-12-31T13:24:35.691+01:00

Hey Patrick, good to see you again :)

You're right, Ruby brought many interesting features into programming. It can influence the way we do JS apps as well.

The trend of full-stack JS is visible, indeed.

At this very moment, I'm playing with Opal, which, at least in theory, could give us full-stack Ruby. Quite intriguing :)

Nice discussion. For sure, the design of ActiveRe...

2013-12-31T13:06:28.814+01:00

Nice discussion.

For sure, the design of ActiveRecord and the idea of scaffolds was revolutionary back in 2005/2006. Actually, I blogged about it too: http://thinkingonthinking.com/Here-Goes-Your-Web-Stack/

To me, the influence of Ruby on programming is still very important. The idea to develop software with fast feedback with a REPL is just great.

But I can't see why the same principles from Ruby that made Rails great, can't be applied to JavaScript development too. My bet is a trend towards more full-stack JavaScript applications, one of the drivers might be the JavaScript used for better schema(-less) development with Node.js too.

Pooyan, thank you for kind words! Yes, SOA is mor...

2013-12-30T10:40:51.380+01:00

Pooyan, thank you for kind words!

Yes, SOA is more interesting. I'm also involved in our company blog and we recently blogged about SOA:

http://blog.arkency.com/2013/12/rails-and-soa-do-i-really-need-to-have-this-big-app/

Ankur, thank yout for mentioning Joosy, I'll h...

2013-12-30T10:39:43.922+01:00

Ankur, thank yout for mentioning Joosy, I'll have a look!

Andrzej, your thoughts means a lot to us, do share...

2013-12-30T01:45:20.496+01:00

Andrzej, your thoughts means a lot to us, do share them more.
I'm in for more SOA, we can use Symfony2, Scala and even Node with Rails.

IMHO coupling frontend and backend maybe is not that much of a good idea. So maybe adhering to REST is good enough?

Nevertheless we definitely need more conventions.

Have you checked this out: http://joosy.ws/

2013-12-29T18:59:04.053+01:00

Have you checked this out: http://joosy.ws/

> Interesting idea with Rails-API-Angular|Ember...

2013-12-29T17:58:26.012+01:00

> Interesting idea with Rails-API-Angular|Ember, I didn't think about that. It makes sense :)
>
> Anyone already doing this?

Yes, we are in a few projects already :). Good combination.

I think this is the way Rails will evolve, views layer will be moved to JavaScript along with large part of logic. If you consider Rails for building a web services, it's actualy really nice framework ;).

I'm not day-to-day rails developer, just doing...

2013-12-29T12:45:04.476+01:00

I'm not day-to-day rails developer, just doing some small pet-projects to keep eye on stuff but I think bundling frontend framework is not a good idea. I think rich JS apps should be clients of your API only (they can even be in separate repository). Projects can still use rails and tons of its goodies for backend and just expose raw API to clients. There was also a project called rails-api but I'm not sure if it is widely used.
Also coupling yet another frontend thing to rails would complicate things even more (I guess it wouldn't be the only way, so the current view stuff would still exist).

BTW, thanks for posting the PHP Symphony2 stuff. Need to take a look at this. Haven't used PHP for ages, maybe it really matured as you said.

"Same ORM, same controller concept, same view...

2013-12-29T12:24:07.679+01:00

"Same ORM, same controller concept, same view layer with helpers."

This.

When I read your comment, I realised that those things didn't change and those are exactly the things that could be improved.

People often say - if you don't like something, write a pull request. The thing is, if I fundamentally disagree with some architectural choices, then it has no chance of being merged in.

There is huge value in the Rails brand - from a marketing point of view. No chance that anyone can come up with a competing Ruby stack and 'win' the masses.

I'm still hoping that something *is* going to happen in the Rails core team. I'm hoping for some brave plans, not just 'small improvements'. We need some new energy in the community.

I'm not an Angular fan, BUT, the marriage of Rails and AngularJS would be a huge marketing win for both sides.

I don't want to go off the track with the disc...

2013-12-29T10:55:53.847+01:00

I don't want to go off the track with the discussion (sic!) but I can't help myself. What you mentioned about Symfony is really interesting. It is no news to me but seeing it mentioned here got me thinking, again, about where rails is heading.

These days I'm pretty sure Rails will not change much. In fact it hasn't changed much in years. I said this many times in the past and usually I was "attacked" with arguments that it improved a lot in 2=>3 transition. And now we have lots of new goodies in 4.x. So, yes, I agree, it improved...however, it stayed the same when it comes to its core architecture. Same ORM, same controller concept, same view layer with helpers.

Marta, thanks, I appreciate it :)

2013-12-28T23:29:19.020+01:00

Marta, thanks, I appreciate it :)

Drogomir, I'll try to blog about it soon. Me...

2013-12-28T23:29:00.183+01:00

Drogomir,

I'll try to blog about it soon.

Meanwhile, you may find those resources interesting:

(hexagonal symfony)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L_9NutiJlc

https://github.com/MarcelloDuarte/hexagonal-symfony

They have a real DataMapper tool (Doctrine) which makes writing domain and services much easier than in Rails.

Also, they have a DI solution built into the framework, thus it makes handling the external dependencies much easier (you can compare it to Ruby gems being able to be automatically injected into the service layer).

Good post!

2013-12-28T22:57:42.089+01:00

Good post!

I highly doubt that any javascript framework will ...

2013-12-28T22:22:49.369+01:00

I highly doubt that any javascript framework will be included in rails and I would strongly discourage that. There is an ember-rails gem and it's probably not really hard to provide an angular-rails gem (if it doesn't exist already).

Regarding Symfony2, what are the things that make it "architecturaly ahead of Rails"?

I think adding a front end JS framework to Rails i...

2013-12-28T21:43:38.971+01:00

I think adding a front end JS framework to Rails is a really bad idea. I haven't come across a use case where a front end framework provides any advantage over the default use of UJS/SJR. It would just be adding bloat and complication.

I built a Wufoo style form builder (single page) using Rails defaults.

It's very possible I'm missing something about the front end frameworks though if someone would care to enlighten.

Interesting idea with Rails-API-Angular|Ember, I d...

2013-12-28T21:17:53.472+01:00

Interesting idea with Rails-API-Angular|Ember, I didn't think about that. It makes sense :)

Anyone already doing this?

I like point 3. Let's have extra "Rails-A...

2013-12-28T21:16:07.745+01:00

I like point 3. Let's have extra "Rails-API-Angular" and "Rails-API-Ember" gems which extend Rails-API with optimizations necessary for the respective framework (build by users of the js framework, not necessarily the rails contributors)