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I've been writing Rails for near on five years, and there are some things that really grind my goat. Rails is great, but there are so many things we get wrong, both as a framework and a community. In particular, for applications that have grown beyond an initial prototype (if you earn a salary writing Rails, this is probably you), many Rails Best Practices are actively harmful to creating solid, robust, and enjoyable applications. I'll talk about testing, data modelling, code organisation, build systems, and more, drawing from a large pool of things I have seen done wrong and also personally failed at over the last half decade. Of course I'll be providing suggestions for fixing things, also. It's more of a freight train, see.
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In the presentation "Rails Sustainable Productivity" by Xavier Shay at LA RubyConf 2012, the speaker discusses the need for Rails applications to optimize for sustainable productivity, especially as they evolve from prototypes into larger, stable applications. He critiques the Rails framework for its shortcomings and suggests improvements for better productivity within Rails development. Key points discussed include: - **Sustainable Productivity**: Shay emphasizes that Rails' self-description claims sustainable productivity, but he argues it is not fully realized in practice. - **Prototypes vs. Stable Applications**: There is a distinction between quickly created prototypes and stable applications with longer lifespans that require different considerations. - **Easy vs. Simple**: He differentiates between "easy" (what's readily available and known) and "simple" (components that perform a single function well) in the context of Rails, asserting that Rails is easy but not simple, complicating developers' tasks. - **Data Integrity**: Shay critically evaluates how Rails handles data integrity, illustrating problems with concurrency and the lack of built-in support for essential database constraints, which can lead to corruption and redundancy in data. Examples include: - The issue of duplicate usernames when multiple requests are processed simultaneously, demonstrating a lack of uniqueness validation in practice. - Problems with associations and foreign keys resulting in data integrity issues, affecting long-term project sustainability. - **Coding Practices**: The talk shifts to coding practices, where Shay discusses separating concerns in code to increase clarity and reduce complexity, advocating for better practices in representing data and clearer documentation. - **Error Management**: He mentions the impact of high error rates on productivity and suggests that code reviews, pair programming, and automated tools (like linting) are effective ways to improve code quality, which ultimately enhances team efficiency. - **Dependency Management**: Shay asserts that managing dependencies both internally and externally is crucial and illustrates how abstracting complex dependencies can lead to simpler solutions and enhancements in code clarity. - **Testing Practices**: He notes the Rails community's struggles with test-driven development, advocating for clearer definitions and discussions surrounding different types of tests to align with best practices in other programming communities. In conclusion, Shay calls on developers to strive towards creating Rails systems that remain enjoyable to work on over time, providing suggestions aimed at improving productivity within the Rails framework. The main takeaways emphasize the importance of simplicity, data integrity, error management, documentation consistency, and effective testing practices for achieving sustainable productivity in Rails applications.
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