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rails-persona — behavioral analytics for Rails models, no Mixpanel needed
rails-persona adds first-class behavioral tracking to any ActiveRecord model. Define trackable actions with a DSL, then query frequency, inactivity, leaderboards, and daily activity patterns — all in your own database. Supports async Sidekiq tracking and bulk inserts. A focused alternative to ahoy for model-level analytics. [more inside]
How Rails Finds the View to Render
Rails does not render views by guessing filenames. It builds a template lookup query from the controller, action, format, variant, handler, and view paths, then asks Action View to resolve the best matching template. [more inside]
asgard v0.3.0 release Thor and Loki working for you!
I got tied of cussing the CLI task running that I’ve been using for a few years. It was good but it wasn’t Ruby. So I wrote my own. The power of The Mighty Thor for a great CLI experience with Loki managing the tricks of the trade. The power of Ruby endorsed by every mythical god of the higher realms. [more inside]
From ERB to Phlex: 5 Steps to Pure Ruby Views
I love Rails, but I’ve always found ERB to be a bit messy. You spend your whole day jumping between… [more inside]
View Primitives
I like the simplicity of traditional Rails apps and the component-based approach of ViewComponent, but I always felt the ecosystem was missing something like shadcn/ui. So I built View Primitives — a collection of reusable UI primitives powered by ViewComponent. Would love to hear your feedback. https://github.com/alec-c4/view_primitives
UUID v7 vs. ULID: Which Sortable ID Should You Choose?
For a long time, if you wanted a primary key that was both unique and chronological, you reached for… [more inside]
An impromptu lightning talk at Rubycon
Last week, I spent an extended weekend in Rimini, Italy, for the first edition of Rubycon. I decided to present an impromptu lightning talk to connect my reconversion story with the current trend of freezing hires of junior developers, and our responsibility as a community to offset/fight that trend.
Stop Making Ugly Apps: Simple Tailwind Tricks for Backend Developers
I know the feeling of opening a blank index.html.erb file and having no idea how to make it look… [more inside]
Building user-customizable themes with Tailwind CSS
https://railsdesigner.com/building-customizable-tailwind-themes/ — Using OKLCH you can tweak one custom property, e.g. :root { --color-value: 60; } and get a UI in all the colours of the rainbow! 🌈😊
The Better Primary Key: A Guide to ULIDs for Rails Developers
In a previous article, I talked about Snowflake IDs. They are great, but they require a bit of… [more inside]
Stop Chasing Hype: Why I Chose Postgres Over 'New-Age' Databases
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been tempted by a “revolutionary” new database. Every few… [more inside]
n8n vs ByteChef: Which Automation Engine Should You Self-Host?
Automating the “glue work” of a SaaS business is a survival skill for a solo developer. You need to… [more inside]
Robert released
Robert is a native FreeBSD AI assistant. He can read man pages, search documentation, and help you troubleshoot. It is distributed as a 2MB standalone binary. Built with mruby, and llm.rb.
How Rails Turns a Controller Action Into a Response
Rails controller actions do not return HTTP responses directly. They perform response state through render, redirect_to, head, or implicit rendering, and Rails turns that into status, headers, and body. [more inside]
rails-llm v0.2.0 has been released
rails-llm provides generators and an engine for the llm.rb runtime inside Ruby on Rails. The engine includes a chat interface, and the generators take care of migrations & models.