Comments on: A Visual History Of The Usefulness Of Ruby On Rails

By: Russell Garner

Russell Garner — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 11:23:00 +0000

+1 for the “it’s perfectly fine” here. Although yes, there was a short (half hour) learning curve because I named a file application.scss.css (and rails doesn’t like that as that’s the target for the consolidated CSS). But otherwise, this gave me fewer problems than going from mySQL to Postgres for Heroku.

EDIT: Although I take your point about “it just working” the benefit I’ve got out of it has been unreal – primarily because I don’t need to think about how SCSS works, sprockets just makes it work.

By: Derick Bailey

Derick Bailey — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:07:00 +0000

i have no doubt that it works once you get it configured. but my definition of “it just works” does not include “once you get it configured”.

where’s the “rails new myapp”, “WOW! it just works!”? that’s what i want. zero config, out of the box, stand up a new app and 10 seconds later, “it just works!”

every report of “i don’t have any problems with it” that i hear is qualified with “once you get it configured”… and that misses the point of “it just works”, completely.

By: Johnny Hall

Johnny Hall — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:46:00 +0000

I’m another one who finds the asset pipeline pretty straightforward. There are a few rough edges (e.g. Compass, and ensuring your environment settings are appropriate) but once you know where they are, it’s not tricky at all. I’m finding that it just works.

It’s important to organise your script code into namespaces but that’s no different than pre 3.1.

By: Derick Bailey

Derick Bailey — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 04:44:00 +0000

i have a hard enough time doing minor upgrades in the 3.0.x series, keeping all of the dependencies working, too :( the prospect of upgrading to 3.1 makes me cringe.

i suspect you’re right about the future of web development, though. it may not be ruby and rails, but it will most likely be something along the path that rails is currently building.

thanks for the note, too. it’s good to see people saying they are having good experiences with 3.1

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 03:10:00 +0000

I personally didn’t find the Asset Pipeline too onerous, and I think the upgrade process is a joy and a wonder compared to the torture of moving an app from Rails 1.1 to 1.2, or from 1.2 to 2.0 for that matter.

Rails 3 really is a miracle, I find myself surprised by its elegance and the amazing community that has grown along with it everyday. Rails 3.1 may need some refinement, but honestly I think its baby steps towards where we will be 5 years from now, which is a hybrid javascript, Ruby, who knows what else environment. We are going to have to bite the bullet eventually, Rails 3.1 is a good first step.

By: Derick Bailey

Derick Bailey — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:28:00 +0000

you are officially the first person I’ve heard say that. i’m not sure about the specifics of where people fall down with it, but i hear a lot of complaints about having to search google to figure it out as the documentation is terrible. from there, it usually goes into other complains about it in general.

By: David Alpert

David Alpert — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:06:00 +0000

gotta say, I love the asset pipeline… makes managing “static” assets SO EASY. ;-)

I really do find it intuitive. Where do people fall down with it?