Product Development with Ruby on Rails
Railsware offers Ruby on Rails development services. We keep the product top of mind as we go about creating cutting-edge technical solutions.
About 17 years ago, when Railsware started, Ruby on Rails had already become an unstoppable tool for Ruby web development. Inspired by Ruby's main philosophy to make programming fun we quickly jumped on the RoR's bandwagon. We haven't regretted it ever since.
Ruby on Rails proved remarkable for product development
Why use Ruby on Rails? GitHub, Airbnb, Kickstarter, Zendesk, Bloomberg – all those fantastic applications have a few things in common – they are successful, pleasant to use, and powered by Ruby on Rails. SendGrid, Mailtrap, Brightbytes – these are examples of Ruby on Rails projects that we developed. If RoR is such a widespread framework, what's so great about it?
Ruby on Rails for web development makes apps really fast
Imagine you could build a proof-of-concept in just a few weeks? With Ruby on Rails, you've got the privilege to do that. This web framework offers readymade modules and generators with which you can build an MVP in the shortest period possible. Ruby on Rails rapid application development is achieved thanks to the Convention over Configuration principle which means you don't need to write a lot of code while building your project. Because every web app built on Rails framework has a standard structure, it is very easy to switch to a new project if things don't work out or add new engineers to extend your team.
We built a proof-of-concept for a senior management governance tool in two days
Knowa is a web platform that makes it easy for boards, executives, and advisers to collaborate. We had the first barebone version of this product up in only five days. We got the proof of concept and iterated week over week to build an MVP, and then the fully-featured product.
Ruby on Rails gives you the power to build any product
Painlessly blending technologies is definitely the sweet spot of Rails. You can easily integrate any other tool, framework or third-party library into your Ruby on Rails project. There's a gem (third-party module) for just about anything you can think of. Google Cloud Services, Twilio, PayPal, AWS – in Ruby on Rails web development framework there is a gem for every purpose. Also, thanks to a strong developer community around Ruby on Rails you’re likely to find solutions for any technical challenge.
We took a product from an idea to 2 million monthly active users
Calendly is the leading appointment scheduling tool with over 60% of the global scheduling software market. From MVP to product/market fit to scale – we've been there at every stage of product development. Today Calendly has over two million active users and processes 22.000 requests per minute. It offers over 20+ direct integrations and 1000+ integrations through Zapier in a single product.
Read moreRuby on Rails comes with everything out of the box
Build, launch, change your mind, pivot, scale – product development is a non-stop adventure. With Rails you can focus on your product, everything else comes out of the box. Database handling, schema migrations, a solid ORM (ActiveRecord), API mode, WebSockets, caching, Webpack bundle styles and images, safe security defaults – RoR's got all the necessary tools and solutions available. Add to this mix some web developers who are closely aligned around the rules of sustainable development and you've got everything you can dream of to build a great product.
We built our own product that processed ~2 billion emails so far
Mailtrap is one platform to test, send and control your emails. We decided to build it to solve the problem our team was having when they needed to test sending emails without spamming customers. Today Mailtrap is used by teams at Atlassian, Adobe, Github, Yelp, and lots of others. It's built entirely on Rails and uses Go for handling incoming SMTP traffic.
Read moreSo let's cut to the chase. Here is why we love Ruby on Rails:
-
Tooling
Ruby on Rails' development tools and common patterns speed up the web development process. -
Libraries
With the best Ruby on Rails gems available, building complex functionality becomes quick and easy. -
Test Automation
RoR has built-in automated testing that helps to deliver high quality and stable Ruby on Rails backend. -
Code quality
Ruby on Rails code is expressive and concise. And the readable code is easier to understand and keep clean. -
Architecture
With Ruby on Rails, you can easily change approaches to architecture and scale within realms of Rails MVC. -
Community
It is the vibrant and eager community that made Ruby on Rails successful. And we love being part of it.
But at the end of the day... It's not about the tech. It's about the product.
Code always exists in a product context. When DHH created Ruby on Rails he had an exact product in mind. It was Basecamp, the first Ruby on Rails startup. To build products as successful as Basecamp, we always try to understand how our code fits into the product vision and what value it creates at any given moment in the product lifecycle. As software engineers, we believe that good code needs to provide the highest value at the lowest cost.
Railsware approach to growing products
Short-term
A product is never a consistent set of features. That's why we build as little as it is needed to validate our first hypothesis and make low-cost experiments.
Mid-term
As we go down the road, we start reflecting on the acquired knowledge and formulating a mid-term vision. We improve the code structure accordingly to reduce tech debt.
Long-term
Finally, we stabilize the functionality that is less likely to change in the future and prepare our code structure for the long-term vision so our product can scale.
We use Go, Elixir, Python, Node.JS...
When Ruby isn't enough
Even though we're primarily Ruby on Rails development company, we use many other tools if this is what our products require.
-
Go for memory-intensive tasks
Because Ruby on Rails uses more resources and memory than some technologies like Go or Elixir, it tends to be slower. We recommend using Go for applications that require keeping the state in the memory, instead of loading from or storing to the database on every request. -
Elixir for complex scalable systems
Unlike Ruby on Rails which supports the object-oriented design, Elixir uses the functional programming paradigm, because it is based on Erlang. Erlang's frameworks are the best fit for writing highly concurrent applications and high traffic systems. -
Python for machine learning problems
There aren't many toolkits and libraries for writing machine learning code in Ruby. Python, on the other hand, has lots of relevant libraries like TensorFlow, scikit-learn, and Keras, and it has long been used in the academic world for prototyping ML models and algorithms. -
Node.JS for real-time applications
Node.JS is good at processing hundreds of thousands of simultaneous requests thanks to its asynchronous data flow on the backend. The types of functionality we build with Node.JS include complex single-page apps (SPA), chat rooms, and data streaming apps.
We focus on the bigger picture and plan ahead
At Railsware, we focus on the bigger picture and think of the product as the soul that lives in code. Technology is surely important. But a product as a whole is more than just technology. Consumer perception, market feasibility, competitive landscape, value proposition, and long-term product vision – we take all those factors into account before we write a line of code.
Let the product lead the way
We hire Ruby on Rails developers of a senior level. In fact, all our people are highly qualified. And cool. Want to build a great product with the right Ruby on Rails web development company?