Advantages of Ruby development
Ruby is one of the few programming languages that has been used in software development for more than 20 years. Although there are fewer “rubists” than “pythonists” or Java developers, Ruby finds its application in large and small projects. Especially after the release of the Ruby on Rails framework. What is the peculiarity of Ruby and can it compete with its “opponents”? In this article, we will tell you whether Ruby application development is relevant for modern projects.
Briefly about Ruby
Dynamic programming languages were actively developed in the 1990s. Then Javascript, PHP and Python entered the market. The first versions were quite complex in syntax and somewhat resembled the “old-timers” of C and C++.
Japanese programmer Yukihiro Matsumoto did not like the “esoteric” (in his opinion) Perl and insufficiently object-oriented Python. The developer set out to create a less complex syntax and an easy-to-read object-oriented language so that anyone could understand the code. It was Ruby, released in 1995.
Ruby’s philosophy is based on two key ideas:
- A natural language for humans. The creator of Ruby believed that people should not think like machines. Therefore, this language is as close as possible to how people speak and think.
- A language for creativity. Ruby offers developers several solutions to the same problem.
Ruby has become a breath of fresh air for developers due to the wide possibilities of syntax, code transparency and other features, which we will discuss below.
Ruby application areas
According to the TIOBE index for August 2021, Ruby ranks 15th among all programming languages. This rating includes the languages in which the largest number of code lines are written.
According to GitHub data for the second quarter of 2021, Ruby is among the top five. This service evaluates the popularity of programming languages by the activity of developers.
The Hotframeworks service ranks Ruby on Rails among the most popular frameworks.
Such popularity of the language and its framework is quite understandable. Ruby is a universal ultra high-level language with dynamic typing. Companies using information technology should write operating system administration scripts and web applications. This language is used to create graphical programs, platforms for analyzing marketing data, solutions for calculating the citation index of scientific articles, and so on. Ruby is used by both startups and large corporations: Basecamp, Twitter, Shopify, Github, Airbnb and others.
Key features of Ruby
Ruby is a modern developing programming language. Everything Python can do, Ruby does just as well.
Let’s take a brief look at Ruby features:
1. Dynamic programming language.
Unlike C-like languages that compile, there is no compilation in Ruby. It is replaced by a special operation (broadcast), which happens quickly.
Ruby uses non-strict Duck Typing. A variable of any type can get into the function input. There is no need, as in C or Java, to define a var.
2. Ultra high-level language.
Ruby is a full-fledged object-oriented paradigm. There are no primitive data types in this language. Everything we work with (including the method code) is an object. This imposes small limits on the memory capacity, but gives huge advantages over PHP and Javascript, which have primitive data types.
3. Interpreted language.
Ruby code is processed by the interpreter almost without precompilation.
4. The right attitude to programming.
The language itself, the community and the documentation contribute to the right attitude towards digital development: Test Driven Development and Don’t Repeat Yourself. When developing Ruby applications, the programmer sees whether this code fragment is used somewhere. Then the specialist wraps it into a function or method and applies it where necessary.
5. Advanced metaprogramming.
Ruby is perfect for creating a DSL language that implements a set of functions inside an entire language. It turns out that inside Ruby, programmers create another sub language that solves a specific task.
Metaprogramming is an approach to writing code that generates other code while a program is running. This feature is not available in all programming languages.
6. More than 140 thousand ready-made libraries (gems).
These tools can be used in Ruby projects to solve your problems. Almost all the problems in the community have already been solved. When a developer writes a program, he/she can use many libraries and achieve stated goals.
Ruby on rails development company calls flexibility and free structure the strength of this language.
Ruby on Rails web application development
Ruby got a second life after the release of the Ruby on Rails (ROR) framework in 2005. So this language became the “king of web applications”. But the real boom began after Apple included ROR in macOS X 15.
The developers have adopted it as a successful server solution for web applications of any size and complexity. By the way, the e-commerce platform Shopify, implemented on ROR, serves about 11 thousand peak orders per minute on Black Friday days.
How Ruby on Rails makes Ruby a unique programming language:
- Ruby on Rails — web framework with MVC architecture. With it, you can create applications of any size and complexity: business card sites, corporate systems, cloud applications, SAAS platforms, and so on.
- Standardized framework. It doesn’t change as often as NodeJS or Python. There is no need, as in JavaScript, to use libraries to remove spaces on the left. The five-year project “on rails” can be safely read and understood. Ruby is not changing in terms of syntax, but in terms of improving performance, memory, and other features.
- Accelerated development. Ruby developers create an application 30-40% faster than their colleagues using other programming languages. Moreover, about 884,000 solved problems are posted in the community on GitHub. They can be freely used. For example, developers don’t have to guess how to protect themselves from CSRF or XSS attacks. They use a ready-made solution in the community and thereby save time on developing Ruby applications.
- Working with all modern databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle and others).
- The principle of “convention over configuration”. Instead of creating thousands of configuration files, Ruby developers adhere to the opinion accepted in the Ruby community. For example, all file names with program code for controllers should end with the word “controller”. Thus, the entire automatic build system understands that all files with that name are actually a controller. In other languages, all files are described in the configuration systems so that the developer does not forget anything. In rails, this happens automatically. The main thing is to name it correctly.
- Simple scaling. If the number of visitors grows, the application can be scaled horizontally in 5-10 minutes. To do this, it is enough to buy virtual memory or a server.
- Convenient deployment. A special Capistrano program deploys web and other applications. It is not tied to the framework. Even Python and PHP can work with it.
Conclusion
Ruby is widely used by developers and actively developed by the community. It has been among the best programming languages for fifteen years, and we are sure that it will occupy this position for a long time thanks to Ruby on Rails.
Ruby features make it perfect for fast-changing programs and for large stable projects with a million audience, such as Shopify, Twitter, Groupon and others.
We are not saying that Ruby application development is the best technology for a product. The choice depends on the specifics of the application and other important points that are discussed with the customer. But companies should definitely take into account the capabilities of this language when creating their products.
