Future of Ruby on Rails as a Programming Language

A number of recent reports have highlighted how Ruby on Rails (RoR) is being adopted widely by both established companies and startups across various sectors. Many reports have even indicated that Rails will be used widely for mobile application development. The most recent information clearly indicates a steady and consistent increase in the popularity of RoR as an open source and full stack internet application development.

The framework written in Ruby also supports several widely used software development architectures and patterns including model–view–controller (MVC), active record pattern, don't repeat yourself (DRY) and convention over configuration (CoC). So Rails makes it easier for programmers to create robust internet applications that complement the most recent trends in web development.

Why the Future of Ruby on Rails is Extremely Bright?

Full Stack

Unlike other popular web technologies, RoR is a full stack web development framework. So it can be used to cover the font-end as well as the back end. A web programmer can use Rails to create an entire internet application without relying on any other developers. Any developer familiar with HTML, JavaScript and CSS can start using RoR. Thus, the enterprises can easily hire Rails developers for their project.

Usable for Creating a Wide Range of Internet Applications

At present, Ruby is used by businesses belonging to different sectors to create internet applications and online portals. Along with allowing users to tweak or change the applications in a flexible way, Ruby also enables them to test the application quickly and efficiently. Further, businesses can use the programming language to update their internet applications by adding new features. In comparison to other web technologies, Ruby can better effectuate the development, testing and deployment of applications without requiring any extra time and efforts.

Option to Customize Internet Applications

Often programmers have to customize the look and feel of an internet app according to client’s specific requirements. Unlike other technologies, RoR enables developers to easily create their own building blocks, and add plug-and-play functionality to the application. The developers also have option to reuse the elements of their current project for future projects. So they can easily extend the performance and usage of the app without developing building blocks from the scratch.

Saves Time and Money

Many enterprises, nowadays, opt for open source technologies to curtail project costs. Along with being open source, RoR also enables developers to cut significant chunks out of internet app development project. At the same time, the framework also makes it easier for programmers to complete coding within a reduced span of time. Thus, a business can rapidly move from planning stage to development stage. Many startups and emerging companies rely on Rails to save both development time and cost.

Facilitates Software Updates

As RoR supports MVC architecture, it becomes easier for programmers to keep the model separate from view and controllers. They can simply create models using a wide range of objects, and modify the models to change the web application’s look and feel. Once the modifications are done, the models can be saved in the database and reused with different server side code. Rails further make it easier for database developers to create optimized SQL queries, while preventing SQL injection and XSS attacks. Thus, RoR is popular among businesses that require the web applications and online portals to be updated at regular intervals.

Support of a Large and Active Community

Like other open source technologies, Rails is also supported by a large and active community of developers. The community further contributes hugely towards increasing the adoptability of the framework. Along with improving Rails code consistently, the developers also help other programmers in completing their projects. So the novice Ruby developers can avail the assistance of the community to get software libraries to simplify certain tasks and to fix certain issues.

The web programmers can further use the most recent version of Ruby on Rails to avail several new and enhanced features. For instance, the latest version of Rails 4.1 allows them to avail new features like variants, spring, enums, mailer previews, and secrets.yml. You can get in touch with a ruby on rails development company, who can help you develop web apps that are stable, scalable and secure.

We provide ruby software development services. If you would like to hire Certified Rails Programmers for your development needs, please contact us at Mindfire Soltuions.

Changes in Rails 4 and what impacts will it have

The release of Rails 4 has been much anticipated with nearly 1 year spent on the development. Architecturally, there are no major changes; nevertheless there are quite a number of changes in the overall system. There is a modular format in the evolving of the framework with the main focus being keeping the main codebase lean as well as effective. In fact, many features have been pushed into separate gems and for deprecated features all official support has been removed. However, if a developer really needs to use them then they can do that without too much trouble.

Minimum Ruby 1.9.3- This is considered as the biggest change that has been brought in this framework. With minimum ruby 1.9.3 needed, 1.8.7 has become completely obsolete. Previously there was no issue as such about the versions but with this renewed requirement it has become necessary to upgrade everything. This might seem to be challenging but nothing can be far from the truth. RVM makes the upgrading process really simple. So there is nothing but benefits to reap- a smooth transformation with the features of the improved as well as upgraded version.

Turbolink- The turbolink concept is often marked as controversial since due to it, normal HTTP links are not generated by Rails and everything is done with JavaScript. The serving of the original page will be done normally; however, other links clicked afterwards will result in all markup being deleted, replaced with HTTP reply’s markup and then the displayed URL will be updated. It might seem complicated, but since browsers do not have to go through requests for checking the changes of Javascript and CSS files, the method is really fast. Just a single request has to be focused on, without any attention needed to be given to additional requests.

ActiveRecord::SessionStore- When we use cookies to store sensitive information it might lead to problems and breach of security later on. Thus, to eliminate that problem ActiveRecord::SessionStore feature has been abolished. But if you do want to store sessions in database all you have to do is take help of activerecord-session_store gem and this functionality can be brought to use.

ActiveRecord::QueryMethods.none- This is a newly introduced function that helps implement the null object pattern. This is perfect for those conditions where there is a method that returns some relation but a condition requires the database to not being queried. This will help in smooth working of all chained conditions without much of an issue which helps eliminate the requirement of constant checking of the object for a relation.

Thread-safe- This feature has been incorporated as a default feature. This helps in good performance of threaded HTTP servers in case the same Ruby process is handling multiple requests. For the characteristic Rails application, it may not mean much but it does ensure that the used gems are thread safe; also the application code will keep the state to itself. In case the same variable is accessed by another thread, this will ensure that the normal results like crashes and other disastrous circumstances are avoided. It also helps avoid data corruption.

Streaming through ActionController::Live- Through Rails, streaming can be conducted. Through HTTP streaming the response is doled to some request over a period of time instead of everything at the same time. In case of media like video streaming, this is often used. Simply including ActionController:Live module can help use streaming. Response.steam.write can be used for writing of data or text to stream. This addition may be small but a lot of possibilities are opened by this.

There are several other additions as well as subtractions and the aim of all these is to make the framework more functional and user-friendly. In all, it is quite easy to implement the new architecture so that maximum advantages can be enjoyed but with the least problems. You can get in touch with a ruby software development company, who can help you develop web apps that are stable, scalable and secure.

We provide Ruby on Rails development services. If you would like to hire Certified Rails Programmers for your development needs, please contact us at Mindfire Soltuions.