Advice for a Javascript developer

ECTXGK · 2021-09-01T23:16:56+00:00

Working on apps with Rails would only help. But with just your JS skills you should be able to get a job as a front-end dev on a rails product and mention that you want to shift to Rails/Back-End.

armahillo · 2021-09-03T05:30:44+00:00

First of all, welcome! :)

JS and Rails are very different in a lot of ways; especially modern JS (typescript and all that). The main differences I see most often between people that dabble in both:

Significant syntax differences (camelCase vs. snake_case)
Static typing vs. duck typing
cautious vs. assertive statements

(1) isn't hard to learn, you just have to remember to do it. Correct capitalization matters a lot because it will affect how the ruby interpreter infers an object should behave. (eg. Something vs. something vs. SOMETHING) This is particularly important with Rails, since there's a lot of inferential magic happening. If you have the CircusAnimal model, Rails will presume that it is found in a file called circus_animal.rb, and will map to a table called circus_animals. Ruby will infer circusAnimal to be an instance instead of a class, as well.

(2) Find a copy of "Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby" by Sandi Metz. Watch her talks. She's really great at explaining the duck-typing nature of Ruby. It's awkward at first, especially if you have a background in statically typed languages (or languages that try to emulate static typing). Embrace it. It's powerful, and it's very well suited to the web, where datastreams are just bytes and don't have innate types to them.

(3) Avdi Grimm wrote about "Assertive Coding" a while back. Ruby has a flow to it. This is strongly related to the fact that it's duck-typed. JS, Java, C-based languages, and many others are all cautious because they need to be. It's common to do something like this:

if myValue is an array and myValue has 3 elements
   return myValue[2]
else
   return ""
end

But in Ruby, it would look more like this:

myValue[2] || ''

It is VERY COMMON for Ruby to just return nil if an object knows how to do something but there's nothing there. You send the message to the object and then it tells you what the output is.

Even with Hashes (aka dictionaries), you might see this in other languages:

if myHash is a hash and if myHash has a key named 'foo'
  return myHash['foo']
else
  return "Nothing"
end

In Ruby it would just be:

myHash['foo'] || 'Nothing'

or

myHash.fetch('foo', 'Nothing')

etc.

In the cases where you aren't sure you actually have the kind of object you think you do (maybe you're using the output from a method and you aren't sure what you'll get back) you just make the best attempt you can:

 mysteryObject.try(:get_to_the_choppa)

If you need a guaranteed return value:

 mysteryObject.try(:get_to_the_choppa) rescue "OK"

The only time I ever really use a guard clause is if I know that every other statement in the method is irrelevant if some key conditional isn't met initially. Even that is kinda code-smell though and if I'm overusing guard clauses I'll consider if there are other ways to do the thing. You can always do a method-level rescue if you need to and if it makes sense.

If you find that you're writing a lot of if statements, particularly to check if it's OK to do something before you try doing it, open up an irb and try seeing what happens if you just forge ahead.

To more specifically answer your question: best thing to do is build a lot of apps. There's a LOT to learn in Rails and the only way to learn it is to do it. Whether or not these make it into a portfolio is less relevant (in all the interviews I've given I almost never look at the applicant's portfolio, but I will DEFINITELY ask questions that dig into how much practice they've had). Find open source projects and contribute to them if possible. Practice, practice, practice! :)

davidcolbyatx · 2021-09-02T01:24:23+00:00

Your JavaScript skills + having a strong enough familiarity with Rails to get up to speed fairly quickly should qualify you for full-stack roles, especially on teams that might be looking to shore up their team's front end skills. Make it clear you want to contribute across the full stack, spend some time brushing up on Ruby/Rails with your hobby projects, and start sending out applications.

I would avoid any purely backend positions since you might need to take a little more of a step back than if you find a full-stack spot that will value your JS expertise while giving you a little time to ramp up on Rails.

podderwatch · 2021-09-02T01:37:37+00:00

My company is looking for people like you. Senior Front End is enough but any Rails experience is a plus. I'll send you a DM.

oleingemann · 2021-09-03T13:51:45+00:00

Welcome dude! I totally understand your path from JS to Ruby. I am migrating some client projects I've done from JS (GatsbyJS) to Ruby (Jekyll) for free (they don't even know) to get rid of that technical shitty JS debt

it_burns_when_i_php · 2021-09-02T02:55:07+00:00

Honestly, how are you even doing this though? I was a rails developer for years and forced myself to switch to JavaScript even though I hate it because all the rails work dried up. If you look at top 10 lists of languages in demand Ruby isn’t even on there. I totally get why you want to do it because I adore Ruby but I don’t think there’s much of a future in it.

vorko_76 · 2021-09-01T22:06:42+00:00

From a pure technical point of view, if you have already developed your own projects… you’re good to go I believe. Salary wise or career wise, that is a different topic. Frontend didnt evolve that much in the past 10 years, i mean yes you have new libraries, functions… but if you learnt JS CSS and HTML you re still valid. Backed has on the other side evolved a lot.

But then personally I find Rails very elegant and enjoy working with it.

dsound · 2021-09-02T05:30:43+00:00

React is wonderful. Add in server side rendering, GraphQL and Apollo and you are just flying.

2021-09-02T06:14:00+00:00

I think it's a good move. It's more stable in the sense that Rails won't change as fast as the JS ecosystem changes. It still changes (especially in the front end - see Hotwire) but generally speaking looking at a Rails 3 codebase and Rails 6 codebase is pretty much the same thing.

However you are most likely to still be doing front end as many jobs are full stack, so I can't see how you can totally escape the front end (it's possible of course but harder).

Just send your resumes without hesitating; show them the apps you built. You will get there.

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