Migrating from Paperclip to ActiveStorage without downtime
How we moved a production Rails app with a large S3 media library from Paperclip to ActiveStorage using dual writes, a backfill, staged cutovers, and compatibility monkey patches.
LESSONS FROM REAL RAILS APPLICATIONS
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Practical lessons from taking over, stabilizing, and improving real applications. For engineers who care about what happens after deployment.
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All articlesRuby on Rails maintenance cost: what you can get from $1,500 a month
See what $1,500 or $3,000 a month buys for your Rails app: developers from $50/hour, architect time at $80/hour, and a calculator for your own budget.
Ruby on Rails maintenance companies: how to compare the right partner
Compare six Rails maintenance offers by onboarding, pricing, continuity and coverage, then use a production handover checklist to evaluate your shortlist.
The Complete Guide to Data Migrations in Rails
Choose a Rails data migration approach: SQL, scripts, migration_data hooks, data-migrate, or maintenance_tasks. Plan batching, tests, retries, and production rollout.
More Available Ruby Developers and What Supply and Demand Predict Next
An economic argument for how greater Ruby/Rails developer availability can pressure pay today, discourage future supply, and create opportunities for Rails application owners.
How bot scans used up my Rollbar quota and triggered New Relic alerts
Automated scans for exposed secrets filled my Rails error feed. Here is how I filtered routing errors in Rollbar, and why monitoring noise matters.
Ruby Regexp RCE Fixes: What Rails App Owners Should Check
Ruby's October 2026 regexp fixes explained for Rails teams: assess untrusted patterns, update the runtime, and verify the deployed application.
Planning a Rails Upgrade? Start With the Risks, Not the Version Number
What a Rails upgrade assessment should tell founders: dependency blockers, business workflows, staged delivery, recovery and the first milestone to budget for.
Rails Database Migrations Across Multiple Git Branches
Reproduce database drift across Rails feature branches, compare manual rollback and branch-specific databases, and try actual_db_schema with observable checks.
Running Rails migrations before Kamal switches containers
How we traced Kamal's deployment lifecycle to run Rails migrations before cutover, pin the release image, and refresh secrets with a small Ruby extension.
Ruby Is Mature and Still Moving Forward
My takeaways from the 2026 Rails Community Survey: new applications, practical architecture, shared maintenance challenges, and reasons to feel optimistic.
A small RSpec helper that saves code, risk, and AI tokens
Replace repeated ENV cleanup with stub_env, then teach your AI assistant to use it. A real refactoring with measured line and token counts, and its limitations.
How to Prevent schema.rb Conflicts in Rails
Diagnose Rails schema.rb conflicts, remove phantom migrations, and regenerate a clean schema without losing legitimate changes from other branches.
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