Learn the brighter side of Ruby on Rails: Why big companies like Airbnb and GitHub use it?

What is Ruby on Rails?

Just to make it clear, Ruby on Rails is not a single word. Rail is a development tool that works as a framework. This framework is used to deliver the structure for the code a developer has written. Ruby is a programming language. By using Ruby, David Hansson developed Rail framework in 2004.

If we combine the meaning of ruby and rail (Knows as Rails), then a proper definition comes out. Rails is the server side programming framework which has been written in programming language Ruby. Rails enables the easy way of programming by its innovative features like seamless data table creation, migration, and scaffolding. Developing a web app with this type of features packed framework lets a developer complete the coding in lesser time.

What problem caused the birth of Ruby on Rails?

It was a time in web development when web development was treated as a challenge. But now it is treated as an opportunity. Ever wonder why?

Web development highly relies on the few programming languages. These programming languages have been developed in such a way that machines understand it effortlessly and human needs the effort to understand it as it does not use native language which a human understand easily. Because of it, there was a time when only a few web developers were in the market. But the current scenario is different. Some egghead people got frustrated with the complexity of the programming languages and decided to develop much simpler programming languages by using those complex programming languages. These easy programming languages are capable of writing codes in more native languages which decreases the complexity of developing web application and increase the development and adoption rate of a different kind of innovative web application.

Ruby on Rails is one of the programming languages which has popped out from the chaos of complex programming languages.

The popularity of Ruby on Rails

• Ruby on Rails is not the most popular web application framework. But it is not even hiding at the last. In the presence of Asp.net, Bootstrap, and AngularJS, Ruby On rails performing quite well. ASP.NET holds 18.5% of the market share, while Ruby on Rails holds 18.91% of the market share.

• Currently, almost 140,000 websites are running on Ruby on Rails. Among these websites, 18.62% of the websites are related to business and industry niche.

  

• The USA is having the most number of websites which are running on the Ruby on Rails. That number is almost 27000. After the USA, India is having 23000 websites which are running on Ruby on Rails.

• Ruby on Rail has been ranked 3rd in India for the most popular programming language category.

• Ruby on Rail has also been ranked 3rd on the entire internet in the category of Programming language category.

Important properties of Ruby on Rails which are making it so popular

• Model View Controller (MVC)

  Ruby on Rails is the server-side programming language. That means it is responsible for generating respond on client’s request and sending that respond to the client. Ruby on Rails’ very unique property, MVC is allowing a developer to generate response and making it visible to the client in a very easy way. It divides the back end of the web application into three main components. These are the model, view, and controller. The model holds all the logical and business programming of the web application. The view is the presentation layer. It decides what to display, where to display and how to display. While the controller is building a link between model and view. So in conclusion, this work in such formation, the user uses the view (user interface) to give a command. The controller sends that command to model. Model perform business logic on it and send the result to the controller, which controller send back to view. View then display that result to users.

  With this MVC structure, a developer can code the web application in a more manageable way and it eventually reduces the development time and errors. Apart from this, the broad use of MVC structure is, when you need to change the interface, you simply need to change the view part. That time, you don’t have to touch the model and controller part of the web application.

• Convention over configuration

  Convention over configuration is reducing the complexity of the web development. The simple meaning of this property is when a developer specifies something, Ruby on Rails itself define all other things which need to define by the developer. For example, if there is any table named product in the database, Ruby an Rails creates any other table related to that table named product by itself. This is how Ruby on Rails gives the freedom to the developers from developing a large number of the configuration files.

• Don’t repeat yourself (DRY)

  Don’t repeat yourself (DRY) is the concept in the software and web development which states that every piece of code must be written in the coding file for only once. Ruby on Rails works on the DRY concept. Working under this concept make sure that the code will be easily maintained and has fewer bugs.

Thanks to these properties, you will get the following benefits in your next web application development:

• Easy to implement

  Ruby on Rails uses native languages for coding purposes. That means developers can do more with the less code. Also, developers can learn and implement new features of language more easily.

  By writing a few simple lines, you can create a database of any object. Learn it from the following example:

  

• Faster Development

  If you develop a web application on ruby on rails, it minimizes the development time by 25 to 30% thanks to its properties of MVP which is ready to go online within hours. Apart from this, developers can access third-party modules more easily.

• Easy code maintenance

  We have discussed earlier that MVC distributes the code in three part. That means, whenever there is a need to maintain a small part of the code, the developer can target that related part of the MVP to update that specific code.

But this is one side of the story. Ruby on Rails has some limitation too:

• Doesn’t support all hosting services

  As Ruby on Rails is more resource intensive, not all the hosting services support the website which is built using Ruby on Rails. But this is not a big deal. There are few hosting services which support the Ruby on Rails, like, Heroku and EngineYard.

• Performance

  Many people believe that web which has been developed on Ruby on Rails platform is not fast enough. Java and C, drive the websites fast. Well, this is true. But this is not a deal breaker. With some optimized programming a developer can easily make the web application fast enough.

Top companies which are using Ruby on Rails on their web application

Companies are achieving prominent web development ecosystem with Ruby on Rails. Any web application which is developed on the platform of Ruby on Rails is fast, reliable and performative. Thus top major companies prefer to build their web applications on Ruby on Rails.

Airbnb	Ruby on Rails is used along with React.js and Moment.js.
Groupon	Fully based on Ruby on Rails
Github	Ruby on rails is used along with Java libraries.
Shopify	One of the most successful Rails based company. Have used only Ruby on Rails in the back end.
Ask.fm	Ruby on Rails and jQuery with AJAX

Final words:

Ruby on Rails holds so much potential. It helps you to achieve one of the best web application with the help of its unique properties like MVP and DRY. A Small startup or even a big company can adopt Ruby on Rail for the quick and cheap platform of web development. You as a cyberpunk can even consider Ruby on Rails for the learning as it is very easy to learn. This is how Ruby on Rails has so many advantages for all types of users.

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