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When Ruby on Rails burst onto the scene in 2004, it excited web developers by showing that you could build next generation apps quickly and efficiently. Rails was one of the first frameworks to embrace Ajax, giving everyone the power to do partial page updates and whiz-bang effects in a conventional, effortless way.

In 2007, the Rails team embraced RESTful conventions, making API development a no-brainer for new applications. Because RESTful JSON is so easy in Rails, Rails applications tend to implement APIs on balance.

Then it was time to polish. Both the 2.0 and 3.0 releases cleaned up the code-base and found ways to take emerging conventions and make them easier to use.

But now, like in 2004, another revolution is brewing. Increasingly, developers are moving their view layer from the server into the client, using RESTful JSON and client-side templating to increase responsiveness and bring applicable aspects of desktop applications to the web.

Like last time, not every application needs to jump head-first into this new world. But just as in 2004, Rails has an opportunity to embrace the future, and bring its ruthless insistence on convention over configuration to bear on this problem.

Rails already has the plumbing to be a fantastic conventional JSON server. The question is: will we take the challenge, or will we desperately cling to the past, hoping that the future will never come?

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In the talk titled *"Rails: The Next Five Years,"* Yehuda Katz discusses the evolution and future challenges facing Ruby on Rails, particularly in light of the increasing shift towards client-side development. Katz begins by emphasizing that Rails, which gained popularity for its convention-over-configuration approach, must continue to adapt to current trends or risk becoming obsolete. He highlights key developments in Rails over the past five years, noting its embrace of RESTful conventions in 2007, which streamlined API development.

Katz outlines several critical points:

- **Adoption of New Technologies**: As modern web applications increasingly shift focus to the client-side using JavaScript-heavy frameworks, Rails faces competition in justifying its relevance in such projects.
- **Convention Over Configuration**: This principle helps developers avoid trivial decisions, allowing them to focus on more significant aspects of application development. Katz elaborates that a well-defined convention provides a solid foundation, making the framework more robust and efficient.
- **Security and Complexity Reduction**: He uses Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) protection as an example of how Rails simplifies complex problems through conventions, reducing cognitive load on developers.
- **Standardization of JSON APIs**: Katz argues that the lack of standardized approaches to JSON APIs results in repeated trivial decisions that could be streamlined through Rails’ existing conventions.
- **Technological Debt**: Discussing the balance between immediate feature implementation and long-term maintainability, he cautions against accumulating further technical debt during rapid development phases.
- **Proposed Solutions**: Katz introduces a proposal for using *Active Model Serializers*, which he believes could help standardize JSON API structures while reducing redundancy and inconsistency in client-server interactions.

Katz concludes by urging the Rails community to take proactive steps to maintain relevance in the evolving landscape of web development, emphasizing that Rails must leverage its historical strengths in creating conventions to effectively address challenges brought by client-side frameworks. He asserts that frameworks should provide solutions for common problems rather than leaving developers with trivial choices, ensuring Rails remains an attractive option for modern web applications.

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