To decide on a front-end for your Rails app, you need a feel for the options. Does a certain JS framework speak to you or does it make you feel dirty inside? There's only one way to find out! In this article, Julio Sampaio walks us through creating a React app from scratch and integrating it with a Rails back-end via webpacker.
If you've ever checked the environment in your Rails app with Rails.env.production? you've used a fascinating little utility class called StringInquirer. In this post, Jonathan Miles dives into the rails codebase to show us exactly how StringInquirer works and how we can bring a little of its magic to our own apps.
Before you can decide on a front-end for your Rails app, you need a feel for the options. Does a particular JS framework speak to you or does it make you feel dirty inside? There's only one way to find out! In this article, Julio Sampaio walks us through creating an Angular app from scratch and integrating it with a Rails back-end via webpacker.
The fastest web page is one you've already loaded. Browsers love to avoid round-trips by caching assets. And HTTP provides ways for us to tell browsers what's changed and what hasn't - so they make the right decisions. In this article, Jonathan Miles introduces us to HTTP caching and shows us how to implement it in Rails.
A fast app means happy users. The speed that your pages render depends on which templating system you use. In this article, Diogo Souza puts the three most popular Ruby templating engines to the test to see which is fastest. In the process, he shows us how to construct benchmarks and do our own investigations into performance.
As developers, we spend way more time maintaining and changing code than we do writing it. By optimizing for change through SOLID design principles, we can avoid a lot of pain. In this article, Milap Neupane introduces us to SOLID, explains each principle in-depth, and shows us how to apply them in Ruby.
Logging is tricky. You want logs to include enough detail to be useful, but not so much that you're drowning in noise - or violating regulations like GDPR. In this article, Diogo Souza introduces us to Ruby's logging system and the LogRage gem. He shows us how to create custom logs, output the logs in formats like JSON, and reduce the verbosity of default Rails logs.
Elixir makes it easy to work with sophisticated data structures. We've come a long way C, where you had to manage every detail of your data's representation in memory. Even so, the way Elixir lays out your data in memory can have real implications on your app's performance. In this article, Sasha Fonseca gives us a tour through Elixir's internal data structures and shows us how they can affect application performance.
What makes Rails magical? It just might be its code loader. Put a few files in the right places, and - presto! - you have a web app. When you use a class, Rails handles the include so you can stay focused on your code. But this magic isn't just for Rails! You can add thread-safe code loading to your own apps via the Zeitwerk gem. In this article, Olasubomi introduces us to Zeitwerk and shows us how to integrate it with our own projects.
We don't get to choose our families. Some of us don't even get to choose our databases. What do you do if you have the bad luck to inherit a database with non-unique ids? In this case study, Regan Ryan shows us how his team faced the challenge.