Ruby on Rails has recently launched its first 5.0 beta edition, almost 11 years after its very first release on July 25, 2004. The latest framework update besides handling Action Cable WebSockets, includes “an EventMachine -powered connection loop, a thread-backed channels layer for server-side processing, and a JavaScript layer for client-side interaction,” according to rubyonrails.org.The new framework according to Ruby on Rails website is very easy to use, while Action Cable gives its users the ability to access all of their Active Record and PORO domain in their WebSockets.
“Rails is not only a great choice when you want to build a full-stack application that uses server-side rendering of HTML templates, but also a great companion for the new crop of client-side JavaScript or native applications that just needs the backend to speak JSON,” Ruby on Rails says, continuing that in case a user creates a new Rails application that is backed by API, they will be able to get “a slimmed down skeleton and configuration that assumes you'll be working with JSON, not HTML.”
According to Ruby on Rails, here are some of the changes that the new version will bring:
- New Attributes API by Sean Griffin.
- The test runner now reports failures inline, so you don't have to complete the suite to see what went wrong.
- ApplicationRecord has been born as a default parent class of all models created by the generators.
- ActiveRecord::Relation#in_batches makes it much easier to deal with record work in batches at a time to lessen memory overloads.
- Post.where('id = 1').or(Post.where('id = 2')) gives you exactly what you'd think!
- No more accidentally halting Active Record callbacks because the last statement is false. Now you throw(:abort) explicitly!
The new 5.0 version requires at least a Ruby 2.2.2 update, because the Rail developers though it would be best to use the features of Ruby 2.2.2 version, something that was announced long before the launch of the latest update.
So far, around 800 people have contributed to Ruby’s latest release on Rails. Ruby said that even though the framework is doing great as a start, there is still a lot of work to do and a lot of things to improve. According to JavaWorld, Rail 5’s main short-term competition “will not come from Node but from earlier versions of Rails, as is generally the case with any new version of a framework.” You can find more about Ruby on Rails upgrade here and read more about the latest upgrade here.