Skip to main content

Keynote: The Magic of Rails

Exploring the principles & techniques behind the framework

Eileen M. Uchitelle

Rails Core Team | Senior Staff Engineer @ Shopify

Schedule Entry

Slides

Attendees​

  • All
RelevancyInteresting
99

Notes​

Exploring the principles & techniques behind the framework. Works at Shopify

Originally Tightly coupled. Clear lines between gems Active model only requires active support.

Tenants​

  • Rails is modular but not fractured.
  • Rails is designed to have agnostic interfaces.
  • Rails is extracted from applications.
  • Rails is made of simple and aesthetic APIs
  • Rails is a framework that takes on complexity to empower you

How Rails Components are structured.​

  • Action Cable
  • Action Pack
  • Active Job
  • Active Storage
  • Action Mailbox
  • Action Text
  • Active Model
  • Active support
  • Action Mailer
  • Action View
  • Active Record
  • Railties

Naming Convention Active vs Action?

Active is backend behavior Action is user facing Frailties is the glue between them.

Architecture​

Architecture & Patterns of Rails components Architecture & Patterns the role of Railties

Application -> Register hooks -> Load components -> Run hooks

Railties​

  • Railties are the core of the framework
  • Railties control load order ad when hooks should be run
  • Enables components to work together without adding dependencies Look in the components railties for how it is configured.

Architecture & Patterns Agnostic interfaces.

model ActiveRecord
  module ConnectionAdapters
    class AbstractAdapter
    end
  end
end

Factory pattern with inheritance. Active storage does this too. Concrete should inherit from Abstract

Agnostic Interface​

  • Consistent interface for all supported libraries
  • Simplifies Rails code to avoid using is_a
  • Makes it easy for apps to swap out adapters / services
  • Lowers the maintenance burden. They maintain the ones they are comfortable with and other can implement the rest

Metaprogramming​

Class eval. How does the has_many and belongs_to work?

Find the implementation of a method. post.method(:comments).source_location Post::generatedAssociationMethods

  • Powerful tools enables us to build beautiful, simple APIs
  • Hides complexity from your application
  • Where “Rails Magic” comes from

Maintaining Rails​

Why I work on it

  • 2010: Introduced to Rails
  • 2011: Big Nerd Ranch
  • 2014: 1st conference. 1st contribution
  • 2015: First RailsConf
  • 2017 Join Rails Core
  • 2023 This RailsConf

I work on Rails to advance the framework I work on Rails to ensure applications can stay on Rails I work on Rails to build a stronger community I work on Rails have an impact on the future

Rails is​

  • Inspiring
  • Empowering
  • Imperfect
  • The applications we build
  • The team behind it
  • Community
  • Magic