Switching Your Tech Stack (Rails to Laravel). Worth it?

do you think it's worth it to switch up your Tex stack is it even worth it to spend the time to explore and learn a totally new tech stack for building out your own apps your own products your own sites well I'm going to find out this month because I'm exploring that very question you know for the past seven years or so I've been building products using Ruby on Rails and uh and you know the related Stacks to that um and now here in 2024 I'm taking a minute to see if I'm actually going to spend the next seven years or more sticking exclusively to using ruon rails for all of my new products and projects I don't know if the answer is yes or not I'm I'm exploring I'm vetting this question um I'm looking at the you know laravel PHP laravel also what's known as these days as the tall stack so tawin CSS Alpine JS laravel and Livewire I think there's some really compelling things happening in that whole world um so I'm I'm exploring but I'm going to leave the you know like the this versus that Tex stack comparisons that the technical like pros and cons I'm going to leave all that stuff for maybe another video at some point I am collecting some some opinions on you know what I like and what I don't like about both RS and larl um right now but I'm still learning I'm going to share that stuff in a future video um so if you have any questions about my thoughts on on any of that um let me know in the comments and I will post another one pretty soon but what I want to share right now like like one point on this on this uh question is you know I don't I think it's important that we don't judge our speed to building right out of the gate because no matter what if you're exploring a new stack if you're learning a new stack you're going to be way way slower I mean I'm I'm seeing that firsthand right now and I've seen this time and time again in in the past when I've learned new technical skills new new Stacks you're always going to be super slow out of the gate so don't judge like which one you're fastest at building with until you've put in the Reps until you've you've built a a couple of practice projects or shipped a a product or two or three with the new stack then you can start to see and and get more comfortable with the workflow and then you can start to judge like is is building in this stack really actually faster or um or not so that's the first point what I'm most interested right now today in this video is the business question of like is it actually a good investment of time to uh to spend the time to to explore to to learn new technologies to learn new workflows of building things when in fact like in my case and maybe in your case um you you're already fast you're already effective with one particular stack is it even worth it to spend the time to switch or to explore or to learn another stack well just like just about every business question out there it depends right well what does it actually depend on that's the more important that's the most more interesting question right well I think it depends on number one like are you shipping like is your goal to ship a single app are you just trying to build one product and get that out to customers um as efficiently as possible then don't switch don't spend the time to learn something new and you know slow yourself down because if you're just trying to ship a single app and you don't have any goals or aspirations Beyond this one particular product there's no point in switching it's more important to get your product out and built and into the hands of your first customers and the fastest way to do that is to stick to whatever stack you are most comfortable with in my case I'm still fastest and most comfortable in Rubi on Rails so even in the new products that I'm starting today like just last week I started a new one with a client I went with rails because um it's still a great option and I'm fastest with it and I know exactly how to um uh build the product that we need to build using rails because I'm most comfortable in that stack if you're more comfortable in larel or node or what whatever else it might be go with what you know right but there's a flip side that in in my case I happen to be starting up a new product Studio that I'm calling instrumental products and the whole business behind this studio is we're building many apps some of them are my own products some of them I'm building with clients some some of them I'm building with Partners that's what we do that's what me and my uh little uh Shop My Little consultancy here at instrumental products that's what we do we we build products we're building them repeatedly we're filling up our calendar for this year and next year and and so we're in the business of Building Products so I think when that's the case so whether you're building out products for clients or you're building out your own portfolio of products then yeah I I think it's I think it's totally valid totally fine to take a minute in my case I'm taking about a month um you know balancing across other products and projects I think it's it's okay to take a minute to to vet this question of is my current stack the best stack to serve me and my business's goals for years to come so I am vetting that question I am working on I'm working through it I've been going through the paces of learning uh learning laravel and and the tall stack and here's what I'm actually looking for here's what I'm trying to uh uncover here's what I'm exploring and um these are the the business questions at at the high level while I'm in the weeds learning the technical process of building and deploying apps using a a stack that's somewhat new to me I'm vetting out these factors really number one like is this going to be uh the right tool for the job you know um and the job being like we're building modern highquality web applications um can we do that consistently reliably and effectively using this stack another one that's always always super important to me is can we ship fast you know shipping speed is everything it what you you know I I design and build and ship new products again whether they're for me or for clients in both cases I want to make sure that we are getting the product into the hands of first customers as quickly as efficiently as possible um to get that feedback to get the product into into the market that's super critical for the the the viability of a new product so can can we leverage this Tech stack whether my current one or the new one to ship fast another one that's really important when you're building a business around a particular text stack is are there abundant resources in this in this stack right so are there lots of component libraries and you know there's when looking at component libraries I think about like the most essential ones the ones that we use on every single project like authentication or billing or you know other things like that um but you want to see a really healthy ecosystem of component libraries and tools and products that serve this Tech stack another one is training materials you know video courses books communities uh memberships where where you and the people that you work with your your team members people that you hire is is there enough material and up-to-date um training resources to to learn the stack to go back to those training resources when you need to learn something new and specific um and then you know developer communities and hiring pools so um Can is there a worldwide growing community of developers in this Tech stack who can who you can connect with for advice who you can connect with to maybe team up and partner with on projects or on businesses or can you um look to these growing pools of developers to hire out and bring on to your team to help you execute on projects I think that's a really important thing to consider um when you're deciding to build a business around a particular Tech stack like I am the last one that I is also has this has always been super important to all of the businesses that I've built before and some of the success of my previous businesses and like even my ability to build and then sell those businesses has been on how effective we've been at streamlining the op operation can we do what we do repeatedly consistently can we build processes can we build a team around this so that it runs more and more like a machine like a predictable growth machine that's effectively essentially what we're doing when we're building a business so if I'm in the business of building apps and and building out new products for clients um and for myself and for my portfolio then we need to have a system we need to have a stack that that can that is easy for us to spin up new apps that's also easy for us to maintain existing apps as our portfolio grows you know we want to be able to reuse resources across our our whole portfolio we want every one of our products and apps to be more or less consistent so that we can use the same methodologies we can use the same people across different uh projects maintainability and streamlining that across the portfolio is really important and of course um being able to either share infrastructure or at least use the same um systems for infrastructure when it comes to things like hosting and uh and Dev Ops and things like that you know what the truth at the end of the day both your current stack and whatever shiny new stack you're looking at they can probably check all those boxes in my case I'm super comfortable in Ruby on Rails rubyan rails is a perfectly fine Tech stack and I I think it absolutely checks all the boxes that I was um you know talking about these four important factors rails it's it's a yes on on all four of those but I think there's also something about the current momentum in the industry and I'm personally interested in the PHP larl tall stack Tailwind Alpine laravel Livewire I think I think in some ways maybe that stack from what can tell can answer these factors can answer these questions maybe even a little bit more effectively I'm especially looking at um are there re abundant resources and streamlining the operation I think those two you know um might be more effective in laravel land I don't know yet I'm still exploring I'm still learning and maybe I'll I'll share another video or two um as I learn more about that but there's something happening in you know something about the maturity level that that it's really reaching um this this point where I think all these resources all these communities and all these libraries and developers I think it's all becoming more and more integrated more more than ever before both larl and rails are very very mature Frameworks and ecosystems and that's what I like about both of them I I tend to shy away from the um super shiny and brand new like version one of of Frameworks I you know rails is on Rails version 7 laravel just came out with version 11 so these things are not new but they're really really mature and there's certain shifts in momentum I think for me it's it's more personal though like this year in 2024 I'm I'm uh developing instrumental products my my product studio so I think it's a good moment and time for me personally after having spent seven years um you know sticking exclusively to rails I think I'm at a good moment here where it makes sense to yeah I I'll take a month to uh to to explore this question um you know I think and you know a little fomo a little fear of missing out seeing what's over there in in Laro land I think it never hurt hurts you know um but the the key point the key aspect here I think is to be intentional about taking the time to to explore if you're going to take the time you have to understand why that's what that's the whole point of this video is why I'm um taking a minute taking a month to uh to explore this question because anytime you're investing time that's a business decision you're you're investing that time for a particular outcome maybe the outcome is you know what I'm going to stick with rails or I'm going to stick with my current stack and not switch over um maybe the outcome is we'll become a hybrid maybe the outcome is uh you know we will find a new and better way of doing what we do as a product studio um that that remains to be seen But the business decision right now is I'm going to explore I'm going to take about a month I'm willing to take about a month I'm not really willing to take more than a month I don't want to go into a rabbit hole that takes me all year of just learning the textbook on every aspect of these text acts but I want to see if we can build and we and if we can be effective with uh with a new stack so I'm exploring I think it's an interesting question to ask and uh and that's that's what I have for you today I'll be back uh hopefully tomorrow with another video and I'll be sharing notes on this specifically what I like and dislike about rails versus laravel and uh and and the ecosystems in each uh as I learn more about those so if you have any specific questions about this or any feedback for me as I'm looking through these these Tex Stacks I would love to uh hear your your feedback in the comments thanks for watching yeah

Channel: Brian Casel

Views: 1,202

Keywords: business, entrepreneurship, startup, software, saas, buildinpublic, buildinginpublic, ruby on rails, tailwindcss, ui, ux, bootstrapping, laravel, php, product management, product design, front-end development, full stack development, notion, visual studio code

Id: 9pLPCOmNYcA

Length: 15min 0sec (900 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 25 2024