We are already in 2019. Ruby on Rails is now 13 years old. As per the latest usage information on Built With, Ruby on Rails is currently used by a total 2,701,960 websites. There are already 8,66,537 live websites with an additional 1,835,423 websites that used RoR historically. RoR is currently used by high traffic websites such as AMP, Archive of Our Own, cookPAD, Hulu, Slideshare, Goodreads and sound cloud.
Though, these numbers do not define the popularity and current status of RoR. Like every technology, trend, and programming language has its reputation that sooner or later will vary slightly or will decrease in a considerable amount. Still, I believe RoR is doing a great job and remains an excellent web development choice to work with 2019. Every year the rumors about the death and demise of RoR is circulating amongst the developer’s community and so many articles are being written prophesying the “death” of RoR. I request you to not waste your time in reading such baseless articles. The language – Ruby and the framework – Rails is safe and sound.
Ruby Is Far from Dying as a Language
The technology continues to be enhanced. The latest version of Rails 5.2.2 has just released. For technology, it’s hard to survive without software developers. However, it is not in the case of either Ruby or Rails. Software developers are loving it and formed a diverse, loyal and active community with a strong focus on high quality and automated testing of software. The GitHub numbers are enough to understand how the activity is taking place.
Developers have already created ample documents and still crafting new libraries to share the knowledge amongst their community. It means any programmer working on Rails can have quick bug fixes on any complex projects. So, here I come up with a question that why a software developer would let his/her favorite technology die?
With an absolute decline in popularity and contending with the new technologies like Django and Laravel, RoR is quite tired, but you shouldn’t consider it as a dead. Here is why-
1. The community is active and supportive
The Rails community has more than 3733 contributors on Github. Frequent updates and new gems by RoR developers ensure that the application is easier to develop and faster to deliver. On a daily basis, the active community is sharing experiences as well as problems troubleshooting. With more than 300,000 questions on StackOverflow, it is nearly impossible to find a solution for a problem you are experiencing. Not just Ruby, but the Rails has also become so much mature. The detailed and extensive documentation is blessings for newcomers. Ruby on limited to the Rails. It’s a more lightweight solution like Sinatra, which is offering a completely different approach like Hanami.
2. Well-established Code Style Recommendations
Ruby is an object-oriented, general-purpose and reflective yet mature programming language. This stable technology is not limited to being trendy, but it is bringing more to the picture indeed. I won’t deny that it is not possible to write bad code in Ruby as the language is very flexible, but on the flip side, it lets you achieve the same result in multiple ways. Ruby empowers the programmers to write readable and beautiful code, and this practice is established by implementation and testing. Such practice will be carried out by fellow developers on the stability and maintainability of the complete solution.
3. Ruby is Startup’s Best Friend
Numbers of programming languages are there, but Ruby is a first and foremost choice as it’s simple and intuitive to build an application 40% faster than the other technologies. Shorter development time will help you bring your product faster to market and less amount of development time translates into considerable savings for startups who have budget constraints. Due to its open-source nature, the investor has nothing to pay for using this framework’s functionality.
The save money can be used in implementing additional features and making an application more functional for the users. End users would be hardly knowing or caring as what’s under the hood of their favorite application as long as their its reliable, helpful and secure. Trust me; Ruby is the right choice for your startup.
4. Ruby is Constantly Evolving
With frequent updates, at least twice a year, the creators and the community is ensuring that the language continually evolves. From startups to SMEs it has always leveraged the benefits of Ruby for faster development and better savings. On the other hand, large scale projects are using RoR as a POC or prototyping solutions. As ruby is economic to build and extend applications, it is also a viable choice for developing internal and backend tools, where the performance is not a first and foremost priority.
Along with a handy way to handle or upload various blog posts, images, articles, music, and videos, RoR has several popular solutions that fulfill these demands including the open source content management systems.
5. GitHub’s Top Programming Language
How Github’s top programming languages of 2018 can die anytime soon. Top notch and large scale enterprises are continuously using Ruby. Recently, ASW- cloud computing giant added Ruby as its serverless computing solution in AWS Lambda in the raw of Python, #C, Node.js and Java that indicates that position of this language is stable and it is far from demise.
6. Developers are in Love with Ruby
A considerable amount of libraries and resources has established best practices and readable syntax to work with Ruby. Happy developers will undoubtedly deliver valuable results to their customers. There are other languages out there, which will try to show their self-superior, but trust me they are still immature technologies who are trying to prove themselves in the market. Fingers crossed for their success as Ruby is not going anywhere!
7. Ruby Improves and Gets Faster with Each Updated Version
Ruby firmly believes in updating the language. Each update and the new version is continuously enhancing and becoming even speedier than the earlier. Ruby 2.4 was better than 2.0. Ruby 5.2.2 is faster than 5.0. But, if you will compare Ruby with the statically compiled counterparts than it is slower than C or Java. Still Ruby is best in terms of performance for the vast majority of web applications as it holds the capacity scaled with the growing load.
Then why is Ruby Slowing Down?
The answer is not that easy as the question. But, still, let me answer this question upon my understanding. Numbers of other libraries, solutions are newly created and designed. The existence of new frameworks and languages forced Ruby to share the pie of its apple. Such languages are offering dynamic libraries for the forthcoming technologies like ML/AI or other new concepts like Blockchain. This is where Ruby is lacking and unable to compete with those areas as of now.
I would suggest that ensure to use the right tool for the right job and Ruby is not kind of framework that fits for all the development needs. It could be the reason that why Ruby is slowing down.
Epilogue
There are no significant evidence or indication that Rails is dying as a language. It’s just an opinion of people as they want to promote their favorite stack. But, trust me users don’t care about the tech stack. They want a product/solution/application as fast, intuitive and secure. Ruby on Rails has positively achieved this as a framework, and this is the reason it still attracts new followers and developers.
There is no bad language; it’s just a bad choice. If you find RoR as a perfect fit for your project requirement, then do not hesitate to choose it as a web application development partner. Hire Ruby on Rails developer from us to find out more possibilities. Our expertise and skills are nothing but an outcome of the vast experience. You can reach us to take the first step towards building your application using our proficiency. Being a globally renowned RoR development company, we have succeeded in driving customer engagement and boosts innovation in top enterprises worldwide.