Is it boring technology? I'm actually reluctant to pick up Rails because it had always been sold by the Basecamp cult and Jason Fried gives off Musk vibes.
Many opinionated frameworks are also less reliable because of the layers of abstraction, so I'd also associate opinionated framework = sexy and temporary.
I've never actually used Rails in production, just did some tutorial, so I'm probably wrong about this.
I think this depends on the context. I would argue that opinionated frameworks are *more* reliable, with the caveat that you need to know, and agree with those opinions.
I think of RoR, Laravel, Next.js, and Django etc. like I'm crowdsourcing my apps architecture so I can just worry about building out my business logic.
Even if you don't choose a framework at some point you end up building your own framework and introducing new opinions anyway, what I often see in these homegrown frameworks are.
1. Somewhat conflicting opinions expressed across different layers of abstraction that you build into your app over time.
2. In not having an opinion you try to satisfy many ways of solving problems introducing more edge case problems and serious over engineering.
For context, I've been in mobile for 10 years and in general it's the opposite - frameworks are rigid, but the layer under it shifts a lot. These frameworks tend to collapse in an earthquake like manner after multiple updates. We usually support iOS up to 2-3 years old, that's how bad it is.
The other approach is to build it on a platform that shifts with the changes, i.e. hybrid and web. But if you crack open the source of Cordova, you find all kinds of tangled, unmaintained, bad practice wiring and rewiring. I spent a few months trying to hack Cordova plugins and we decided to just scrap the entire code and build native; fully rewriting the app into a custom framework took 3 months.
However, it sounds like tools like Rails are built on a very sturdy platform that doesn't introduce breaking changes every year? That's an angle I haven't considered.
I listened to the latest Rails keynote, I never have before. I don't recall the exact details but it was a bit of a weird vibe for me.
> Many opinionated frameworks are also less reliable because of the layers of abstraction, so I'd also associate opinionated framework = sexy and temporary.
That's one of the persistent knocks against rails -- the layers of abstraction. I think that's fair, but it's a tradeoff. You either go along with it because it's advantageous or don't. Once you get familiar with the concepts and the theory of it the framework does what you expect, not a lot of surprises.
I'll push back on "temporary" though. It's been around for 20 years. It's old, so by definition it's not sexy.
Personally, I've built a number of apps in Rails that are still in production so it's a solid choice.
>it had always been sold by the Basecamp cult and Jason Fried gives off Musk vibes.
Not affiliated with either of those things, but what does this even mean? Basecamp is a business. Jason Fried is a businessman. Basecamp is a product developed by 37 Signals, a company Fried co-founded.
How does any of that create "Musk vibes"? I'm seriously wondering what this is all about.
The good news is that I can just say: go ahead and Google “DHH blog”, read his most recent few blog posts and form your own opinions.
I’ve had a negative opinion of him for a good five years or so, but at least right now it’s easy to go read those and form your own strong opinion one way or another.
The Jason Fried and David Hansson Musk/Fascist vibes are real and are a problem. Most of the people in the Ruby community recognize that problem and are taking steps to mitigate that issue. Most of the core Rails committers don't work for 37 signals, and it's not really a thing made just by them.
Definitely use Rails to start a new project. The real hero here is Ruby and the Ruby ecosystem. It's incredibly stable and mature, But also getting faster every year. About 20 years ago Ruby web frameworks agreed on an ad hoc server interface api, Rack, which is one of the secrets that has made Ruby incredibly stable.
The package system, Ruby Gems, is really great. You can find a Gem for just about anything you could ever need or want. With mountains of Open Source projects and code to read to pick up patterns, or to see prior art to solve a unique problem you're encountering.
>The Jason Fried and David Hansson Musk/Fascist vibes are real and are a problem.
What do you mean by this? Where have Jason Fried or David Hansson supported fascism? Your account is ten years old and this is the first comment you've ever made.
I mean that they give off Fascist vibes, and that it's a problem. Adoration for and support of fascist people and regimes are implicit support of fascism. Not explicit.
Go read their blogs, I'm sure you'll find lots of examples.
I think you’ve discovered the corollary to the “Everything I don’t like is woke” that people say right wingers do. “Everything we don’t like is fascist,” says the far left.
Only way to avoid being called either a fascist or woke (and I know some who are accused of both!) nowadays is to never say anything.
It doesn't mean you're not wrong. Is this a personal vendetta?
>I mean that they give off Fascist vibes, and that it's a problem. Adoration for and support of fascist people and regimes are implicit support of fascism.
Where? Link examples where they supported Fascism. "Vibes" are meaningless, I need specific examples of these claims, else they can be tossed outright.
>Go read their blogs, I'm sure you'll find lots of examples.
I'm not interested in prosecuting that David gives off fascist vibes. I don't have to provide proof. Kinda lazy that you're all not out there looking for the proof yourself.
To reorient the discussion around what the original poster talked about, that he gives off Elon Musk Vibes. And that it's a problem. Well it IS a problem. A problem openly, and vigorously discussed in the Ruby community.
Many people have left the Ruby community because of his behavior, and many more have chosen never to come into the community because of it. Because of the perceived strong association between him and the Ruby and Rails community at large.
Anyways, as per my original point, that despite the Fascist vibes from that guy, Ruby and Rails are still really great choices.
>I'm not interested in prosecuting that David gives off fascist vibes. I don't have to provide proof.
Oh, so you don't have any proof, got it. Your claims have been dismissed, David is not fascist.
>Kinda lazy that you're all not out there looking for the proof yourself.
There is no proof.
>To reorient the discussion around what the original poster talked about, that he gives off Elon Musk Vibes. And that it's a problem. Well it IS a problem.
No proof of this either, so your claim is dismissed outright.
>A problem openly, and vigorously discussed in the Ruby community.
Any proof of this? Who claims it's a problem?
>Many people have left the Ruby community because of his behavior
Looks like a loud minority of leftist activists may have left. That explains how Ruby has only gotten better since.
>many more have chosen never to come into the community because of it.
Many more have chose to join the community now that the activists are gone.
>Anyways, as per my original point, that despite the Fascist vibes from that guy
I use and love using rails, but the centrality of influence of the musk-vibes-camp is for me too the biggest downside. Yes in response to a sibling comment, the RailsWorld keynote was super weird culty vibe, agreed. But hey everything's got ups and downs. Rails is great for me to work in. Hopefully it will remain that way. There are other Rails maintainers who are not basecamp-related, some who say that dhh and basecamp's power over Rails is not as great as people think and it really is distributed maintainership and control, hopefully that is true enough and will remain so.
i know what you mean about abstraction and flexibilty, but I think Rails mostly avoids that and is actually quite flexible. But I don't use the new hotwire JS stuff, that is one area where I share your concern. It's easy to use Rails without it, with the JS of your choice.
Success because of A and attributing it to B. There's a bit of megalomania too. He has a beef against VC funding. He lost 1/3 of staff once when he implemented a policy of no personal opinions at Basecamp. He is often shared because of his unpopular opinions and his successes are used to fortify those opinions.
I'm not saying Fried or Musk are wrong, and they both have brilliant insights at times. If Musk was crazy and wrong all the time, he wouldn't be a brand name.
But both of them also appeal to susceptible people who seem to think that a few good opinions make them good all the time. Basecamp isn't even a good tool, it's a pretty average one, yet prettier than Jira. But it's down this funnel of people who will buy whatever Fried and DHH sell them.
And what I'm getting at is whether Rails is one of those things that is average but prettier than Node?
>he implemented a policy of no personal opinions at Basecamp
Except he didn't do that, what he implemented was not making personal politics a part of Basecamp's workplace culture, which is a much more moderate thing than what you're accusing him of here.
You might not be aware of this, but it's possible to have a personal opinion about something and not bring societal and political discussions to the company account or forum. Here's the text of the new policy:
"People can take the conversations with willing co-workers to Signal, Whatsapp, or even a personal Basecamp account, but it can't happen where the work happens anymore."
Again, this is not at all the same thing as "no personal opinions [allowed] at Basecamp."
I'm on the pro-VC, anti-bootstrap spectrum and so is Elon Musk. American political spectrum of right vs left, authorarian vs libertarian makes little sense to me.
My political compass tends to be BRICS vs G7, religious vs secular. If you're saying they're both G7-secular, I guess that makes sense too.
edit: Also I was not even aware of Musk and the fascist thing before posting the comment, and I can see how it may have been interpreted differently now, lol.
Many opinionated frameworks are also less reliable because of the layers of abstraction, so I'd also associate opinionated framework = sexy and temporary.
I've never actually used Rails in production, just did some tutorial, so I'm probably wrong about this.