Return Data, Not ActiveRecord Objects
Why returning plain data instead of models made some of my Rails code simpler, faster and easier to test.
Rails
Before Adding Elasticsearch, Find the Bottleneck
Years ago I added Elasticsearch to a Rails app and search got faster. I credited the search engine. Looking back, I’m not sure that was the lesson. Here is h...
Rails 8 Wants You to Own Your Stack
Rails 8 isn’t really a bag of new methods. Its headline is a stance: drop Redis, drop the PaaS, and run a real app from a single box you own — with the datab...
Practical Service Objects in Ruby
Service objects keep business logic out of fat controllers and models. A handful of conventions (one entry point, a consistent return value, a simple constru...
Validating Plain Ruby Objects with ActiveModel
You don’t need a database table to get Rails-style validations. With ActiveModel you can validate plain Ruby objects (a contact form, a search form, an API p...
Full-Text Search in Rails with PostgreSQL
Before reaching for Elasticsearch, it’s worth knowing that PostgreSQL has capable full-text search built in. Here’s how to use it from a Rails app — tokenizi...
The Rails 7.1 Features I Actually Reach For
Rails 7.1 isn’t a headline release. It’s a pile of quality-of-life additions that quietly remove boilerplate you write all the time — normalizing attributes,...
Rails console tips
Knowing how to use the Rails console can be very useful when debugging or trying your snippets. Being proficient with it will increase your productivity.
Translating ActiveRecord data using JSON
Following the mass and using de-facto libraries isn’t always the best choice. Here are some thoughts about handling translation of data stored in database wh...