[siaw23]

Rails has matured through the years, I'm convinced it's the right framework for any project if you already know it, you can get by with Hotwire for the FE and not run after React and the rest. Happy to be a Rails dev to be honest.

[Gigachad]

Rails is extremely easy to get started with but after a few years the lack of types on Ruby cripples every single Rails app I've ever worked on. You can have as many unit tests and browser automation tests as possible, but updating any gem is a dice roll despite doing as much due diligence possible. And it's always something extremely trivial like a method changing its parameters without announcing it in the change log for some reason. Something almost any other language would warn you about.

I've been doing Rails dev for 7 years now but I just don't see it winning over TypeScript/nodejs frameworks. The only advantage Rails still holds is the out of the box batteries included package. But once a TS framework gets this, Rails will be in decline.

[0xblinq]

> Rails dev for 7 years now but I just don't see it winning over TypeScript/nodejs frameworks

I think you're comparing a language/runtime with a framework here. I also prefer Node and JavaScript over Ruby but I get what you say, and I agree.

I think Adonisjs ticks all the boxes to be that framework in the future. It just doesn't have the community it needs to be 100% successful yet... with more adoption it will get all the missing features, documentation and little annoyances it might have today polished.

But something I'm worried about is if that the fragmentation is just too big at this point. I don't see people agreeing on a single "full stack" framework as it happened in other environments.

I think this happens because most other "big frameworks" were born when there were not that much competition and not that many people on their ecosystems, so there were a lot fewer options and people concentrated around those frameworks and made them grow to what they are today (Laravel, Rails, Django, Spring...).

The "backend JavaScript" ecosystem is a freaking mess. So many competing options, all of them terribly incomplete, all of them claiming to be "full stack" just because they can execute JavaScript on the server... yes, maybe "full stack" but without the battery... it's a lamborghini that you have to put together yourself before being able to use it.

[mplewis]

This is exactly why I’m keeping my eye on RedwoodJS. They are coming for the crown.

[favorited]

Doesn't Ruby have 2 production-ready typecheckers now? I think Ruby officially has something called RBS, and Stripe open-sourced Sorbet.

[brightball]

I've worked with a lot of Rails code bases over the last 10 years and just haven't ever experienced this problem from a types perspective.

Certainly, if you let gems start to get out of date the dependency chains to get them updated can become a task but that's fairly true of any language. It's one of the selling points for moving parts of an app to isolated services too.

Everything is a tradeoff though. I don't know that you can get the Aspect Oriented Programming gains that you get with Ruby and Rails with a more strictly typed language.

[jemmyw]

It's good with React too when you need more interactivity.

[siaw23]

I believe you can do anything React can with Stimulus + Turbo these days. I don't do much FE but I've been tracking Hotwire for some time now.