Getting back into Rails 7 from Rails 2.3 😱 Apr 27

I’ve decided to revisit Rails after more than a decade of not using it. I have always loved it and created many applications when I was a Ruby on Rails consultant around 15 years ago.

I have over 25 RoR applications I could try to migrate from an old Rails version to the new one. However, after a couple of quick attempts, I decided it’s not worth it because so much has changed, and it’s hard to determine the best migration path. Instead, I just set up a clean new Rails 7 app and transferred the content I needed.

I started out with a simple app for my website. It’s a decent, straightforward app with multi-domain routing, a couple of different layouts based on domains, a simple blog system, and not much more than that.

As expected, the setup was rather fast. I had to read up on “Turbo Links” to get the links working and tweak the routing a bit with some alias-naming.

It’s also worth noting the introduction of new features like ActionCable, ActiveStorage, and Stimulus in recent Rails versions. These features offer modern web capabilities such as real-time communication and direct upload to cloud storage solutions, which were not conceivable when Rails 2 was current. Incorporating these into a decade-old application can feel like retrofitting a vintage car with modern technology - exciting but complex.

Rails still feels like it “just works,” and that’s so nice. I love that you can get from idea to production in minutes. I experimented with a couple of hosting providers but returned to my trusted RoR provider, Heroku. It still seems to work well, even though they were acquired by Salesforce back in 2010. Who would have thought that?