I went all in on Rails a couple of years ago. Although the overall feature set is amazing, code discoverability has been a frustrating stumbling block from day one.
The "magic" (convention over configuration, autoloading, metaprogramming, etc) makes it difficult to know what methods are available to use. I end up over-relying on the official docs, which are of inconsistent quality. One example: api.rubyonrails.org lacks code examples, doesn't usually state what a given method returns, and many entries are outright blank.
Editor integration could help, but feels lackluster. With TypeScript in VS Code, hints come up as I write. I can hover anything to see its type, methods, and source code. With Rails, I can poorly approximate this behavior with a collection of half-functional community extensions, or I can buy and use the slow, bloated RubyMine IDE.
Rails enabled me to build my product, but my experience doesn't match the love I hear from other devs. I wish I knew how to make it click.
The "magic" (convention over configuration, autoloading, metaprogramming, etc) makes it difficult to know what methods are available to use. I end up over-relying on the official docs, which are of inconsistent quality. One example: api.rubyonrails.org lacks code examples, doesn't usually state what a given method returns, and many entries are outright blank.
Editor integration could help, but feels lackluster. With TypeScript in VS Code, hints come up as I write. I can hover anything to see its type, methods, and source code. With Rails, I can poorly approximate this behavior with a collection of half-functional community extensions, or I can buy and use the slow, bloated RubyMine IDE.
Rails enabled me to build my product, but my experience doesn't match the love I hear from other devs. I wish I knew how to make it click.