RailsConf 2023 - Rails as a piece of birthday cake by Vladimir Dementyev

Explore the importance of abstraction in Rails development, using a cake analogy to illustrate the concept of layers, responsibilities, and hiding complexity, and learn how to apply it effectively to create maintainable and scalable code.

Key takeaways

Rails is often poorly abstracted, leading to messy code.
A good abstraction should separate concerns and follow a single responsibility principle.
Abstraction layers can be identified, and described as encapsulation and hiding complexity.
Service objects can be an issue, as they can lead to over-engineering or too many responsibilities.
Presentation layer should be separated from infrastructure layer.
Form objects can be a good abstraction, but they may require more complex setup.
Rails has its own heap of abstractions, such as Active Model and Active Record.
Abstraction should not be introduced for the sake of abstraction, but for solving specific problems.
Scaling abstraction layers can lead to more complex, less maintainable code.
A cake is a good analogy for abstraction, as it has many layers, each with its own responsibility.
The presentation layer should be simple and coherent.
Avoid repeating functionality in multiple places.
A service object is not a good abstraction.
There should be few abstraction layers, each with its own responsibility.
Complexity should be hidden through abstraction.
Code should be maintainable and easy to read.
Abstraction should be defined by the problem it solves, not the number of layers.
There is no universally accepted definition for service objects.
Abstraction should not be artificial, but solving specific problems.
The cake analogy of abstraction is helpful.

RailsConf 2023 - Rails as a piece of birthday cake by Vladimir Dementyev

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