RailsConf 2020 Couch Edition
railsconf.com
railsconf.com
I hope that RoR stays strong amidst the current React/SPA framework/Node fad.
Fortunately, rails has solid support for API only rails apps. Jbuilder is pretty great. In my experience, there’s still nothing in the node ecosystem that rivals ActiveRecord’s maturity.
I recommend a faster JBuilder alternative:
I enjoy using jb:
In general, IMO, RoR is about going fast while producing a good product in the end, and having enjoyable experience in the process. RoR is great for prototyping, but its good enough for a final product too. Java/Spring is rock-solid and time tested, feels better suited for really big projects with really big teams, as Java strictness and verbosity begins to help instead of eating productivity.
For my average web development needs, RoR is better, at least for now.
For many things, Rails might still be the better option. The ecosystem is larger, for one, and it's perhaps a bit easier to 'grok' because it's OO. And I suppose an argument could be made that if you need help, it's easier to find Rails developers or resources (although Phoenix does suprisingly well in the latter category).
But if you're thinking of building projects that involve real-time functionality, whether just websockets-style stuff (Phoenix Channels), or full-on apps (Phoenix LiveView), I'd say the stuff that Phoenix offer are worth the downsides of a smaller, younger, functional-programming ecosystem.
Also it never hurts to learn something different :).
Rails is a fantastic choice for its usecases.
Rails certainly has its strengths. If speed to knock out a working app was my #1 prereq, rails has better abstractions and drop-in libraries to get something off the groud fast. Its probably your best bet for knocking out a CRUD mvp.
Was also expecting at least one talk on StimulusReflex [1] as well. Turns out there aren't any. I thought it was one of the biggest thing for Rails in a long time.
What are people’s thoughts on remote conferences moving forward?
But the bigger issue is that conferences are (for me, and I gather for a lot of people) mostly about the "hallway track," not the official talks. I get a lot more value for talking to people at lunch and after talks than I do from the presentations themselves. That's currently totally missing from the online conference platforms I've used, rendering the whole thing kind of pointless. I might as well just record my talk and put it on youtube; the conference itself it adding little value aside from curation.
I don't think there will be any onsite conferences for the next year, which is a shame. Hopefully they will return at some point.
Although the quality for this remote conference seems to be better than average.
This isn’t to diminish efforts to put on these events. However, it’s important to look at the motives behind conferences:
1.) boost your status as speaker - speaking at conferences can land you a new job, get you investment, etc.
2.) gaining insight that you otherwise couldn’t gain online as an attendee - hallway gatherings, random discussions, etc is why a lot of people go to conferences. The chance that you might catch that one expert in your field and pick their brain is high.
3.) acquire leads as an attending company - for conferences like re:Invent or Ignite you’re year is made by acquiring thousands of leads over the course of 4 days. I’ve seen companies spend $250k on a booth and close over $5m in sales just from one conference.
4.) build good will with the community as a sponsor - when people see you throwing money around sponsoring social events and after parties they tend to give you more attention. Companies do this ultimately to close more business.
Given those 4 motives, I don’t see how online conferences are a thing. Perhaps my definition of conference is too enterprise-y and narrow though.
I guess that for speakers an online conference is as good as posting to the personal blog or uploading a new video. Furthermore it keeps the link with the conference community alive. So it's OK. For the public, no difference than going through the links in any weekly or monthly digest about that technology. For sponsors, which are an important part of the revenues of the conference organizers, I don't know.
That said, most conferences had this option before it became a necessity. So having the conference in real life while making it available for everyone remotely is obviously the best of both worlds, but declaring the latter remote-only conference worthless seems like an exaggeration to me and certainly doesn't refelct my point of view.
On a sidenote: You might enjoy Confreaks, which covers a whole range of those conferences: https://confreaks.tv/
I suspect it's badly engineered because of how horrific the mobile experience is, since they use Rails for everything instead of going API first and building native mobile. But I don't think the engineering matters quite as much because it's such a small product with a small surface area. I just wish a small, bad product wasn't touted as the "majestic monolith," because we have nothing to learn from it.