As an open source web application development framework, Ruby on Rails (ROR) is used widely for building a wide variety of websites and internet application. Despite being open source, the full-stack framework, written in Ruby programming language, is updated frequently to complement the frequently changing trends in web development. In June 2013, version 4.0 of the web application development framework was released with several new features and enhancement. So the web programmers must understand the new features that differentiate the 4th major release of the web application development framework from Ruby on Rails 3.
New Features that Differentiate Ruby on Rails 4 from Ruby on Rails 3
Live Streaming
ROR 4 comes with a new feature called live streaming that allows programmers to stream content directly from the web server to the end-user’s browser. The direct content streaming is done using the browser’s long polling. The feature will make it easier for developers to optimize the performance of applications relying on realtime data. Further, the programmers can avail the live streaming feature to effectuate development of financial applications, stock tickers and games. However, some web servers and web browsers are currently not supporting the live streaming feature.
Russian Doll Caching
The version 4 of ROR also comes with a cache digest for all fragments cached in the web application. So the developers are no longer required to mention version numbers inside the array each time the fragment cache is changed. They simply have to allow the framework to generate an MD5 checksum cache automatically. Each time changes are made to the MD5 checksum cache, a new cache digest will be generated automatically.
Turbolinks
The ROR 4.0 also comes with a new feature called turbolinks to make the web applications work faster. As a piece of code written in JavaScript, turbolinks fetches only the relevant content, and replaces the response sent to the client. So the whole page need not be reloaded whenever the response comes in from the web server. The web browser can keep the current page instance alive, as it will not compile the JavaScript and CSS whenever a page changes. The browser will display the relevant and updated content to the end users simply by replacing the body and title in the page.
ActiveRecord
It is a common practice among web developers to store user information in cookies. But cookies cannot be used effectively for storing sensitive information due to inadequate authentication. So the web programmers have to store the sensitive information more securely in a database. The version 4 of Ruby on Rails does not support ActiveRecord::SessionStore. To avail the feature, the programmers now have to use the activerecord-session_store gem. Thus, the developers can now store the sensitive session information in the database, and refer to the data through specific object Ids.
Support for New DataTypes
ROR 4 no longer supports the ORM for REST-based web services called ActiveResource. But it supports a number of new datatypes in PostgreSQL including Array, INET, CIDR and MACADDR. These datatypes can be normally stored as strings in any database. But the programmers can avail the native datatype support provided by PostgreSQL. They also have option to convert the INET and CIDR databases into instances of IPAddr class.
Security Enhancements
ROR 4 further comes with several security enhancements. However, it requires users to frequently update their Rails application to take advantage of these security features. Along with using strong parameters to protect the application from foreign parameters, the programmers can encrypt the sessions store and avail security headers. X-XSS-Protection, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, and other security headers are also updated with more solid values by default.
Along with understanding the differences between version 3 and version 4 of Ruby on Rails, it is also important for developers to update their projects to the latest version of the web application development framework. They must remember that ROR 4 requires Ruby 1.9.3 at a minimum, while recommending Ruby 2.0.0. Further, they have to update the Ruby gems and maximize the test coverage while migrating the application from ROR 3 to ROR 4.
You can hire developers from top rails web development companies in India who can help you build Ruby applications within allocated budgets and time schedules.
We provide rails development services. If you would like to hire ruby on rails developers from our team, please get in touch with us.
New Features that Differentiate Ruby on Rails 4 from Ruby on Rails 3
Live Streaming
Russian Doll Caching
The version 4 of ROR also comes with a cache digest for all fragments cached in the web application. So the developers are no longer required to mention version numbers inside the array each time the fragment cache is changed. They simply have to allow the framework to generate an MD5 checksum cache automatically. Each time changes are made to the MD5 checksum cache, a new cache digest will be generated automatically.
Turbolinks
The ROR 4.0 also comes with a new feature called turbolinks to make the web applications work faster. As a piece of code written in JavaScript, turbolinks fetches only the relevant content, and replaces the response sent to the client. So the whole page need not be reloaded whenever the response comes in from the web server. The web browser can keep the current page instance alive, as it will not compile the JavaScript and CSS whenever a page changes. The browser will display the relevant and updated content to the end users simply by replacing the body and title in the page.
ActiveRecord
It is a common practice among web developers to store user information in cookies. But cookies cannot be used effectively for storing sensitive information due to inadequate authentication. So the web programmers have to store the sensitive information more securely in a database. The version 4 of Ruby on Rails does not support ActiveRecord::SessionStore. To avail the feature, the programmers now have to use the activerecord-session_store gem. Thus, the developers can now store the sensitive session information in the database, and refer to the data through specific object Ids.
Support for New DataTypes
ROR 4 no longer supports the ORM for REST-based web services called ActiveResource. But it supports a number of new datatypes in PostgreSQL including Array, INET, CIDR and MACADDR. These datatypes can be normally stored as strings in any database. But the programmers can avail the native datatype support provided by PostgreSQL. They also have option to convert the INET and CIDR databases into instances of IPAddr class.
Security Enhancements
ROR 4 further comes with several security enhancements. However, it requires users to frequently update their Rails application to take advantage of these security features. Along with using strong parameters to protect the application from foreign parameters, the programmers can encrypt the sessions store and avail security headers. X-XSS-Protection, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, and other security headers are also updated with more solid values by default.
Along with understanding the differences between version 3 and version 4 of Ruby on Rails, it is also important for developers to update their projects to the latest version of the web application development framework. They must remember that ROR 4 requires Ruby 1.9.3 at a minimum, while recommending Ruby 2.0.0. Further, they have to update the Ruby gems and maximize the test coverage while migrating the application from ROR 3 to ROR 4.
You can hire developers from top rails web development companies in India who can help you build Ruby applications within allocated budgets and time schedules.
We provide rails development services. If you would like to hire ruby on rails developers from our team, please get in touch with us.
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