Stimulus is a JavaScript framework from Basecamp that provides consistent conventions and hooks for JavaScript that manipulates the DOM in server-rendered applications. It aims to fill some gaps that have always existed for developers who embrace a traditional server-rendered paradigm (and who may also be using libraries like Turbolinks or PJAX) but who also need to integrate one-off functionality in JavaScript. Stimulus does not at all concern itself with client-side (nor isomorphic) rendering and emphatically does not aim to be a heavy-client app framework like React, Angular or Vue.js. Instead it was created to support apps that are server-rendered first, and that rely on custom JavaScript where appropriate for UI enhancement.

In the existing paradigm, at least as concerns Ruby on Rails applications, it has been up to the developer to decide how to structure whatever custom JavaScript they have beyond UJS and SRJ responses. Stimulus gives us strong conventions to replace the ad-hoc or custom/bespoke approaches we may have previously taken to such work.

Rails 5.1 introduced Encrypted Secrets to help simplify the management of your application secrets (things such as service credentials and the secret_key_base). This article details the feature and its usage.

Why Encrypted Secrets?

Since Rails 4.1, the framework has given you the ability to centrally store secrets in the config/secrets.yml file. The glaring shortcoming of secrets.yml is that the file actually is in no way secure, and you cannot actually safely check it into version control with any production credentials. The convention for production credentials was always to load them within secrets.yml but from the host environment.

One of the tremendous benefits of building with a high-level framework like Ruby on Rails is that you are afforded both mental space and an abundance of tools to optimize your application with a thoughtful caching strategy. Caching can be done at several levels in the stack and I wanted to provide an overview of the most common caching strategies for Rails applications and the tradeoffs inherent in each.