Rails 7.1: Dockerfiles, BYO Authentication, More Async Queries, and More (opens in new tab)

Even though Rails 7.1 comes with a Dockerfile, there's still a lot of opinions you can add such as using Docker Compose to have a fully working out of the box experience that works in development and production -- complete with Postgres, Redis, Action Cable, Sidekiq and more.

If anyone is interested in that, I updated my example Rails app https://github.com/nickjj/docker-rails-example to use Rails 7.1.

If you want to automatically generate Dockerfiles for more versions of Rails (not just the latest) that detect OS packages that need to be installed from gems present in your Gemfile, check out https://github.com/fly-apps/dockerfile-rails

You can install it in your rails app by running:

1. bundle add dockerfile-rails

2. rails g dockerfile

Rails is great, and better than ever.

I've spent most of my early years in the field working with Django and Laravel, then moved to frontend doing [all the usual stuff we do nowadays] and this year I was assigned back to a Rails + Hotwire project.

I'm truly amazed how much simpler things are. I feel sad most of us have forgotten how easier things could be, and I'm terrified about new people joining this industry that will never know about how easier things could be because they'll never experience that (as things are right now, who knows the future...).

If you're reading this and never tried Rails, or discarded it because you listened somebody say the usual "PHP is ugly/Rails is dead/JavaScript is messy" give it a try with an open mind and ignore what others say for a moment. I can't recommend it enough.

It might not be the best tool if you have 1k engineers working on the same repository, but as a small team it has no competitors, it's just miles ahead everything else (well, honestly, maybe Laravel is as good).

The focus on Authentication is great, it's been a bit difficult to implement my own auth system.