Latest News, Rails 6, Jumpstart Pro and Kickoff Updates

I've been busy getting my new course hellorails.io in better shape to launch this week. While doing that it was recently announced that the first release candidate for Rails 6 was out. I took some time to talk about news, updates to my kickoff starter template for ruby on rails as well as another project I'm teaming up on with some friends.

What's new?

If you don't know already, I set out to create a course called Hello Rails. I found that much of my videos/series on YouTube related to Ruby on Rails got a lot of attention. I receive lots of comments/questions regarding how to accomplish certain things using the framework. From that, the idea sparked that I create something a little more thorough than anything else out there in terms of learning Ruby on Rails from scratch. Consider my course an entry point for someone looking to learn more about the Ruby on Rails framework, get into building web apps, or developers transitioning into a new tool/skillset to add to their arsenal.

My approach is quite thorough which goes against the grain of many tutorials I've seen in the wild. Some videos can be lengthy but it's because I don't skip any important pieces. If you decide to get the course, together we'll build a complete web app modeled after Reddit. We'll build it from scratch all the way to a shippable app of which we do deploy.

At the moment I'm in the editing phase. I recorded 27 modules of over 90 videos over the past couple of months. I'm about halfway through editing all those videos as I write this. My hope/goal is to have the course launched later this month or early next (no promises!). It has been quite the endeavor to get this far and I'm excited it's getting close to being ready. If you want to be notified when it's launched be sure to subscribe at hellorails.io.

Rails 6

Rails 6.0.0.rc1 is out! I've been using Rails 6 for quite some time and really love the updates coming out. There are some major additions as well as some small ones that really expand your horizons when it comes to building web apps. Learn more about what's new here.

Kickoff - Tailwind (Rails application template)

In light of the new release candidate, I decided to update my Kickoff - Tailwind application template to accommodate.

I removed a few things and updated others. All-in-all it's quite minimal since Rails 6 ships with Webpacker by default now. A big switch is an updated version of Tailwind CSS v1 (currently still in beta).

To use the template be sure to reference the video. You'll need to install the beta version of Rails in your Ruby environment manager of choice. gem install rails --prerelease should do the trick at this time of writing. You can also install it directly by running gem install rails -v 6.0.0.rc1. I found I had the best results by first creating a vanilla rails app and only then create another using my application template. Certain gems need to be installed prior to running the template that gets passed.

$ rails new vanilla_rails_app # just to get a proof of concept on Rails -v 6.0.0.rc1

$ rails new myapp -m template.rb # using my template (be sure to be inside the template directory when running this)

Jumpstart Pro

Without a doubt, my application template above was heavily inspired by Chris Oliver's Jumpstart Rails application template. Chris got a lot of eyes on his template that he uses for screencasts over on gorails.com. It turns out that we both live pretty close together and started to collab on a new project Jumpstart Pro with Jason Charnes.

Consider Jumpstart Pro a way more elaborate solution towards getting a Ruby on Rails application configured to do a lot be default with nearly no effort. The application template comes with support for many features and more that are being added. We have a landing page up that will eventually house documentation and a way to gain access to the template. It is still currently in early beta but feels free to subscribe to learn more at https://jumpstartrails.com.

A lot is going on! I'm very excited to get my course and Jumpstart Pro out as well as create more Rails content for the blog/ YouTube channel. Many future plans include diving deeper into hard to understand topics within the Ruby on Rails framework. I ultimately want to learn and enjoy doing so in public as it helps others out as well.