The Future of Ruby on Rails at Shopify

by Mike Dalessio

In the presentation titled "The Future of Ruby on Rails at Shopify," Mike Dalessio discusses the evolving relationship between Shopify and Ruby on Rails at RailsConf 2022. He describes his personal connection to Rails as both empowering and full of challenges while emphasizing the framework's continued relevance. Key points include:

Scaling Challenges: Shopify aims to manage and scale Ruby on Rails to meet increasing demands while ensuring that new developers can easily engage with the framework.
Investing in the Community: Dalessio stresses the importance of contributing to the Ruby and Rails community to enhance tools that benefit all users and help newcomers thrive within the environment.
Continuous Innovation: He highlights Rails 7 as a significant update, showcasing the framework's ability to remain innovative even after nearly 20 years since its inception.
Shopify's Vision: He outlines Shopify's product vision to support entrepreneurs by providing essential tools for running online businesses, thus emphasizing the seamless integration of Rails within their operations.
Local Merchant Examples: Dalessio promotes two local merchants at RailsConf—Aloop and Smith Tea—illustrating how Shopify empowers smaller businesses.
Long-term Goals: He expresses the ambition to ensure the long-term relevance of Ruby on Rails over the next century, focusing on modern enhancements, performance production, and developing architecture that supports scalability.
Tooling and Performance: Efforts are being made to enhance development environments and performance through partnerships and community support, including initiatives like YJIT and funding for research.
Security Measures: The speaker also addresses the importance of security within the Ruby ecosystem, highlighting collaborations with key entities to maintain open-source sustainability.

Overall, Dalessio conveys a commitment to ensuring Ruby on Rails remains a vital tool for developers in the future while fostering a welcoming community and enhancing the framework's capabilities. He encourages open discussions about experiences with Shopify and aims for developers to find joy in using Ruby on Rails.

00:00:00.900 My relationship with Ruby on Rails is a bit complicated. It's a love-hate scenario, full of fun and magic. If I had to describe my relationship with Rails in one word, it would be 'empowered.' You can do so much with it, despite being a relatively small framework in the grand scheme of things. At Shopify, one of the key problems we're trying to solve is scaling Rails to handle massive demands. We're addressing challenges like how to make Rails more approachable for new developers and ensuring that it works seamlessly with Elixir teams.

00:00:21.119 Our focus spans from security to speed optimizations and higher enhancements. We constantly think about the future of Rails and how to keep it aligned with the needs of its user base. The framework evolves and improves continuously; for example, Rails 7 is one of the most exciting releases we've seen. It's impressive that after nearly two decades since its inception, it still manages to innovate and excite. Investing in the Ruby and Rails community is crucial for us. We aim to ensure that the language and framework remain as top options for newcomers, enabling them to flourish within the community while also supporting Shopify's growing needs.

00:01:14.000 This investment goes beyond addressing our interests; it’s about fostering features that everyone needs to scale and effectively utilize Ruby on Rails in the future. Personally, programming in Ruby brings me joy, and using Rails enhances that experience. I want developers around the world to feel the same passion and happiness I do when developing Rails applications. I truly belong to this community, where countless talented individuals share their expertise and inspire me.

00:02:07.800 Hello everyone! Welcome to day two of RailsConf 2022. I'm Mike Dalessio from Shopify. As my employer, my perspective might be a bit one-sided, but I'm excited to engage in an open discussion about what it's like to work at Shopify. Feel free to reach out to me if you’d like to talk openly about my experiences, both the positives and the challenges.

00:02:28.819 Shopify and Rails have grown together since both were young, emerging in 2004. Our CEO, Toby, was one of the original Rails contributors and a Rails Core member, reflecting how tightly intertwined our product is with Rails. The developers' joy and experience are fundamental to our engineering culture at Shopify, encapsulating concepts like 'Omakase menus' and 'majestic monoliths.'

00:03:20.000 At Shopify, our product vision is quite straightforward: we want to provide entrepreneurs everything they need to operate their businesses online and allow them to concentrate on their strengths. This involves not only facilitating storefront experiences and payment gateways but also introducing services like merchant financing and drop shipping through our warehouses. We strive to empower merchants to achieve one or two-day shipping, competing with giants like Amazon.

00:04:14.220 This week at RailsConf, we’re showcasing two local Portland merchants: Aloop, which offers earplugs designed to help quiet the noise of the world, and Smith Tea, which has a tasting room in Portland. If you're interested, please stop by the Shopify booth to learn more and check out some samples.

00:05:00.540 Returning to Rails, we've successfully scaled from small to large merchants like Sephora, Budweiser, and Red Bull—all powered by Rails. The success of Shopify owes a lot to Rails, and we want to give back as much as we can. We aim to be a company that lasts 100 years, so I think about the technology stack for Shopify in 2122. Will Rails still be relevant? It would be amazing if it is, and my aspiration is for my team to contribute significantly to that future.

00:06:06.720 Looking ahead, we need to position Ruby and Rails as tools for the next hundred years. This means not only continuing to enhance Rails for modern projects but also ensuring production performance, enabling seamless scalability, and developing robust application architecture. We are focused on easing upgrades, creating excellent development environments, avoiding code anti-patterns, and thoughtfully integrating types into our codebases.

00:07:17.880 Our efforts include improving tooling and maintaining robust and open-source solutions. We are enhancing VS Code to be the best Ruby editor, integrating Rails support into Sorbet, and finding ways to automate Rails upgrades. Additionally, we’re committed to enhancing Ruby performance through projects like YJIT and partnerships with Oracle, along with a half a million dollars in funding for computer science researchers. Lastly, we're actively focused on the security of the Ruby ecosystem, collaborating upstream with Bundler and RubyGems.org, and preparing to announce a long-term partnership with Ruby Central to ensure the sustainability of the open-source supply chain.

00:08:06.060 The video you just watched features my team at Shopify, comprising both renowned experts and emerging talents who will shape the next generation of Ruby and Rails professionals. Together, we aim to ensure a long-lasting tooling and ecosystem.

00:08:21.000 Thank you for your attention! I hope I've shed some light on our motivations at Shopify clearly. We’re not a gigantic, intimidating entity—just a group dedicated to making Ruby and Rails last as long as possible. I'm available for conversations about working at Shopify, but my greatest hope is that you find joy and value in using our software and that we collaborate on ensuring that Ruby on Rails continues as a timeless and robust toolkit.