Trailblazer is a high-level Architecture libraries for the Ruby web application (not only for Rails). If you are no familiar with it yet - take a 20 minutes walk through guide...
I want to cover once again those places where our team had issues or misunderstanding. Trailblazer documentation got a lot of improvements recently and keep getting more and more care. Some points from this list are covered by the docs, but in practice not everything was smooth.
Read th most recent version of this guide here http://rwdtow.stdout.in/. I have transferred it to GitHub Pages with custom domain.
This guide is born after a question "Could you write a list of all the things, that a good RoR developer should know?". I decided to expand it to a whole Ruby Web development and related “Full Stack” skills (but also limit it to "Web", as it is not about Ruby in general).
I am inspired by "PHP The Right Way" guide format (and advises). So this guide also contains sections dedicated to very important aspects of web dev, some explanation (if needed) and list of tutorial links.
Sometimes I will suggest some tools or Gems (with comparison if possible), but it is only to have a starting point. It is up to you to decide "use it or not".
Important notice. All suggestions in this guide is my personal opinion. It is not an absolute truth or a 100% best practice. I just want to suggest the best I know.
Also this guide is not complete tutorial - some clear steps like installing Ruby (via
rbenvorrvm), managing dependencies via Bundler, etc. are not described due to wide coverage of these aspects in other tutorials (and there are no fatal issues regarding of e.g. how you install Ruby, if it works – that's fine).
I am glad you are asking! :)
It is not a secret that most of Ruby Web Dev came in Ruby via Rails. That is good and bad simultaneously. It simplifies the entry barrier, but also narrows knowledge range. This guide have special RoR section to cover some RoR-specific things, but mostly it will encourage you to look outside of Ruby on Rails and especially “Rails Way”.
And I can't call the way described here as "The Right Way". It is just another way to look on common things.
I have heard of Elixir in late 2015. Strong Ruby developers just started to write something about it in their Twitter accounts - that it is a functional programming language and one can do a blazing fast realtime web apps with it.
Then I have watched this intro video, made a quick look on Phoenix framework, read really inspiring comparison "Phoenix is not Rails" and my inner Magpie Developer was alarming "looks so awesome, you must try it !". I couldn't stand :)
I have started from the very beginnig. A few pages of Elixir lang introductions. Then first "hello world" Phoenix application. And... ok, just try to breath deep and calm after 4 ms response time... it is just a dummy page with static HTML (but all routing and Plugs infrastructure involved). But it already makes an impression, as PHP shows the same speed only with empty echo "hello world"; script :)
Phoenix web framewok app structure is pretty clear at the first look. And surprise - it uses Node.js/NPM + Brunch.io to manage and compile assets by default - good start, not inventing the wheel!
It introduces a lot of new concepts compared to RoR. Of course it has not clear yet WebSockets endpoints etc., but in general by mixing it with my knowledge of middleware (Plugs in terms of Phoenix) implementations in Ruby, Node.js and PHP - I see a way to go further.
But wait. Have I told you that Elixir is working on Erlang VM? That is well-known and rock-solid foundation. It has Ruby-inspired syntax, but not Object Oriented, it is Functional. And that is another reason to try it out - to make your coding paradigm wider. It really breaks all patterns of data flow in web app (that were made of concrete after years with PHP, JS and Ruby). I definitely love pattern matching concept, piplines and absence of "internal state". And these lightweight threads - I could not even dream about such things in PHP :)
Get deeper in Elixir lang docs, walk through Phoenix docs and writing some basic "blog app" to see Phoenix in real action.
And as usual some resources collection to get started and move further...
REST API design is still a topic under discussion. I'll try to collect list of resources for web developers who want get deeper into it.
Start with Apigee: Web API Design.
Continue with more advanced topics in Thoughts on RESTful API Design .
Addtional interesting apects are covered in HTTP API Design Guide
To get brief understanding on different aspects of API variations refer to Undisturbed REST. Also it covers some instruments for building and prototyping APIs.
If you want even more additional info and "other points of view"
RESTful API concepts are clear, but big and complex app still require more predictable way to organize APIs. People try to find a way to provide standartized way for documenting and organizing REST API protocol.
Learn Enough Command Line to Be Dangerous by Michael Hartl an introduction to the Unix command line. Brief and really informative.
Antonio Ramirez has shared a guide how to add FontAwesome via Composer in Yii2 project as Asset Bundle.
Semantic UI - a toolkit for web UI with semantic layout. Actually looks more semantic and clear (in terms of HTML code) than Bootstrap.
Hand-picked registry of Node.js frameworks. Makes you a suggestion for mature framework to start with a little easier (according to specific of your needs).
PuPHPet - simple GUI to set up virtual machines Vagrant + Puppet for Web development.
Mobile-Detect - a lightweight PHP class for detecting mobile devices. Works like $detect->isMobile() etc., very handy for choosing a frontend rendering strategy based on this info.