Mark Chavez

Ruby’s simplicity has reached a whole new level. It has given developers a new approach to writing code. For me, coding should be fun and that’s what Ruby has always been. It has enabled us to not think about code too much but focus more on how we can give values to our customers.

Why am I saying this?

Because once a developer has focused on the customer, it keeps them happy and we get to keep our jobs. More value means success.

To demonstrate how simple this language is, let me show you a block of code.

list_of_characters = Character.all

list_of_characters.each do |character|
  puts character.name
  puts "List of weapons:"

  character.weapons.each do |weapon|
    puts weapon.name
  end
end

The above code is simple, and easy to understand. But this is something that has a hidden cost. In the context of Rails, we call this the N+1 problem. This article is not going to discuss the N+1 problem but conceptually, it means more unnecessary database calls and performance issues.

What I am trying to say is that developers new to Ruby or Rails may have abused the simplicity that ruby offers. This is just one of the many problems that Ruby developers has to be aware of. No wonder that there are a lot of Ruby on Rails is dead. and Ruby on Rails does not scale. articles showing up on the web and it really creeps me up.

It’s about time to step up and stop blaming Ruby for whatever problems that we have. Because it is a language that scales and performs very well just like any other languages.

Maybe it’s a good start by understanding how Ruby’s GC works. Or learn how to benchmark effectively. We should know when and when not to use ActiveRecord queries. And most importantly, the more we know how these things work, the higher the possibility we can contribute and make the Ruby community better.

Let’s help each other and make it simple.