Web development that hurts even less: taking lessons from Rails

It has been over ten years since the Rails framework brought Ruby to the forefront of web development. You might think Ruby is synonymous to Rails, but there’s more to the community than that. New languages and frameworks are no longer aiming to merely imitate Ruby and Rails — they are aiming to improve upon it. Lotus, ROM, Phoenix, Ecto, Sequel, Roda, Webpack: they all represent lessons learned about how we build software. It’s time to broaden our horizon (even if only a little bit). As good as Rails is, can we do better?

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2. Arjan van der Gaag @avdgaag arjanvandergaag.nl brightin.nl
3. Web development that hurts even less Taking lessons from Rails
5. “Look at all the code I’m not writing!”
6. “So that's why I love software. It's not like modern art. You can't just keep spouting intellectual nonsense forever. At the end of the day, you have to translate your prescriptions into running code and that's when the bullshit meter activates.”
7. Thanks, great discussion.
8. “Rails 5 is going to ship also with an evented file system monitor.”
9. (˽°□°҂˽Ɨ ˍʓˍ)
12. class ArticlesController < ApplicationController def show @article = Article .where.not(published_at: nil) .find(params[:id]) end end
13. class ArticlesController < ApplicationController def show @article = Article .where.not(published_at: nil) .find(params[:id]) end end
14. class ArticlesController < ApplicationController def show @article = Article .where.not(published_at: nil) .find(params[:id]) end end
15. class ArticlesController < ApplicationController def show @article = Article .where.not(published_at: nil) .find(params[:id]) end end
16. class ArticlesController < ApplicationController def show @article = Article .where.not(published_at: nil) .find(params[:id]) end end
17. class ArticlesController < ApplicationController def show @article = Article .where.not(published_at: nil) .find(params[:id]) end end
18. class ArticlesController < ApplicationController def show @article = Article .where.not(published_at: nil) .find(params[:id]) end end
19. class ArticlesController < ApplicationController def show @article = Article .where.not(published_at: nil) .find(params[:id]) end end
20. module Web::Controllers::Articles class Show include Web::Action expose :article def call(params) @article = ArticleRepository .published .find(params[:id]) end end end
21. module Web::Controllers::Articles class Create include Web::Action expose :article def call(params) @article = ArticleRepository .published .find(params[:id]) end end end
22. module Web::Controllers::Articles class Create include Web::Action expose :article def call(params) @article = ArticleRepository .published .find(params[:id]) end end end
23. module Web::Controllers::Articles class Create include Web::Action expose :article def call(params) @article = ArticleRepository .published .find(params[:id]) end end end
24. module Web::Controllers::Articles class Create include Web::Action expose :article def call(params) @article = ArticleRepository .published .find(params[:id]) end end end
25. module Web::Controllers::Articles class Create include Web::Action expose :article def call(params) @article = ArticleRepository .published .find(params[:id]) end end end
26. module Web::Controllers::Articles class Create include Web::Action expose :article def call(params) @article = ArticleRepository .published .find(params[:id]) end end end
27. 1 plain objects with minimal interfaces
28. <%= form_for @article do |f| %> <div class="input"> <%= f.text_field :title %> </div> <% end %>
29. <%= form_for @article do |f| %> <div class="input"> <%= f.text_field :title %> </div> <% end %>
30. <%= form_for @article do |f| %> <div class="input"> <%= f.text_field :title %> </div> <% end %>
31. <%= form_for @article do |f| %> <div class="input"> <%= f.text_field :title %> </div> <% end %>
32. <%= form_for @article do |f| %> <div class="input"> <%= f.text_field :title %> </div> <% end %>
33. <%= form_for :article, routes.articles_path do div do text_field :title end end %>
34. module Web::Views::Articles class Index include Web::View include Lotus::Helpers def comments_count format_number( articles.comments_count ) end end end
35. 2 Explicit and intention revealing interfaces
36. 3 Avoid monkey patching
37. class Article < ActiveRecord::Base validates :title, presence: true end
38. class Article < ActiveRecord::Base validates :title, presence: true, unless: :draft? end
39. class Article < ActiveRecord::Base validates :title, presence: true, unless: :draft? validates :slug, presence: true, on: :update end
40. class Article < ActiveRecord::Base validates :title, presence: true, unless: :draft? validates :slug, presence: true, on: :update before_validate :set_slug end
41. class Article < ActiveRecord::Base validates :title, presence: true, unless: :draft? validates :slug, presence: true, on: :update before_validate :set_slug, on: :create end
42. “There are nineteen callbacks in total, which give you immense power to react and prepare for each state in the Active Record life cycle.”
43. class Article attr_accessor :title, :slug def initialize(title:, slug:) @title = title @slug = slug end end
44. defmodule Article do schema "articles" do field :title end @required_fields ~w(title) def changeset(article, params \\ :empty) do article |> cast(params, @required_fields, []) |> validate_length(:title, max: 255) end end
45. 4 Favour many small objects over few large ones
46. class UserRepository < ROM::Repository::Base relations :users, :tasks def with_tasks(id) users.by_id(id) .combine_children(many: tasks) end end user_repo.with_tasks.to_a # [#<ROM::Struct[User] id=1 name="Jane" tasks=[#<ROM::Struct[Task] id=2 user_id=1 title="Jane Task">]>]
47. class PostMapper < ROM::Mapper attribute :title, from: 'post_title' wrap :author do attribute :name, from: 'post_author' attribute :email, from: 'post_author_email' end end
48. 5 Don’t manage state, transform data
49. 6 Embrace, but isolate your database
50. # Gemfile gem "jquery-rails" gem "sprockets" # app/assets/javascripts/application.js #= require jquery #= require jquery_ujs
51. config :example_phoenix_app, ExamplePhoenixApp.Endpoint, http: [port: 4000], debug_errors: true, code_reloader: true, watchers: [node: [ "node_modules/brunch/bin/brunch", "watch", "--stdin" ]]
52. 7 Do one thing, and do it well
53. 8 When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging
54. class Article < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :comments end article = Article.new article.comments # => <#ActiveRecord::Relation []>
55. class Article < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :comments end article = Article.new article.comments.build
56. “Ecto does not provide functions like post.comments << comment that allows mixing persisted data with non-persisted data.”
57. 9 Be transparent
58. # app/views/articles/_article.html.erb <div class="article"> <h1><%= article.title %></h1> </div>
59. # app/views/articles/_article.html.erb <div class="article"> <h1><%= article.title %></h1> <p><%= render article.comments %></p> </div>
60. query = from a in Article, limit: 1 article = Repo.one(query) article.comments # => Ecto.Association.NotLoaded
61. query = from a in Article, preload: [:comments], limit: 1 article = Repo.one(query) article.comments # => []
62. “Lazy loading is often a source of confusion and performance issues and Ecto pushes developers to do the proper thing.”
63. 10 Nudge developers into the right direction
66. class ArticlesController def index @articles = Article.recent respond_to do |format| format.html format.xml do @articles = @articles.limit(10) end end end end
67. class ArticlesController def show @article = Article.find(params[:id]) fresh_when @article, public: true end end
68. <%= form_for @article do |f| %> <%= f.input :title %> <%= f.input :body %> <% end %>
69. protect_from_forgery with: :exception config.filter_parameters << :password
70. Forms, Security HTTP, Conventions
71. Rapid prototyping
72. Good design nudges us in the right direction
73. Convention over configuration
74. Simplicity over convenience
75. Arjan van der Gaag @avdgaag arjanvandergaag.nl brightin.nl