Why Ruby on Rails is a Preferred Choice for Software Development?

In the fast-paced and extremely demanding software development world, frameworks are like a magic bullet for the developers. They help in improving developer’s efficiency, reduce time-to-market, and improve application scalability. One such proficient framework is Rails, based on Ruby.

Ruby on Rails (RoR) is a web application framework, written in Ruby programming language. It was created by a Danish hacker- David Heinemeier Hansson, during the development of an online project collaboration tool, Basecamp. The framework was publically available in 2004 and it has grown exponentially over the years.

Ruby software development is very popular programming amongst the developer’s community and the same goes for the framework based on it (according to Stack Overflow).

What makes Ruby on Rails a perfect framework for software development? Well, several factors are contributing to making RoR a comprehensive solution to building versatile & scalable applications. Some of them include:

1. Convention Over Configuration: Ease at Development

Convention over Configuration, also known as Coding by Convention is a software development approach wherein the code is backed by typical programming conventions instead of programmer-defined configurations. The benefit of such an approach is it makes software development simple while maintaining the base software requirements.

This eliminates the need for additional software configuration files, thereby accelerating the software development cycle and maintain code consistency. Ruby on Rails, Javabeans, CakePHP are some of the frameworks that use this development approach.

2. Versatile Library (RoR GEMS): Reduced Time to Market

Ruby on Rails has an extensive library that allows developers to speed up the software engineering cycle. These small software packages called "gems" enable developers to extend the application’s functionality without having to write lines of code for it. The RoR community continuously adds new GEMS to the library regularly. Such flexibility during development significantly reduces the time-to-market of an application.

3. Build Backend & API: Comprehensive Development Solution

Ruby on Rails (RoR) is one of the most efficient frameworks for building database-backed web applications. If we take a look at some of the most popular web apps that are built using RoR- AirBnB, GitHub, Shopify, Basecamp, SoundCloud, etc., it can be claimed that RoR is a relevant choice for building database-backed, scalable, and versatile web applications.

Besides, Ruby on Rails can also be adopted for API development, which makes it a one-stop solution for building a complete software application.

4. Test Automation: Earlier Detection of Defects

Ruby on Rails Rails has an option for integrated testing that keeps a check on the quality and authenticity of code as the developer writes it. When a Rails project is created, a test directory is automatically created. By default, Rails has three different environments- development, production, and test. When using the test mode, the developers can either test the entire code at once using the bin/rails test command or can run a single test file bypassing the file name.

Application Development with RoR: Getting Started

There are certainly several reasons to choose Ruby on Rails for web development. While the above mentioned are only a few of them, our tech experts can let you understand the true potential of this technology, depending upon your business type or the project idea.