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.
