Best practices for managing and maintaining large Rails app?

Question

What are best practices for managing and maintaining large Rails app?

Answer 1

The big need is test. Add a really big test suite to be sure avoiding some regression.

When you can try to extract some part in gem too.

Answer 2

Note these are my recommendation based on experience.
They certainly include personal preferences and opinions gained through experience.

• Tests for any code put into production.

• Make sure your source control is git over svn and others.

• A good issue / request / bug tracking system. I recommend Pivotal Tracker over others like Trello.

• Encourage and support tdd and bdd. Make it a priority to educate and share this information.

• Communication Style. At all levels, listen first. Also explain, show examples and give details as to why things are done a certain way. Be prepared to be challenged, be friendly when it happens and be prepared to change when it makes sense

• Team Communication. Often overlooked. Make sure that people can speak their mind, can be honest and are respected. Let them know when top just focus on getting code out and when to pay more attention to the big picture. Yes ideally both all the time but in reality that pendulum swings based on other factors (time, money, etc.).

• Product Manager Communication. Maintain a tight and free-flowing communication with the project manager. Make sure they understand the business and drive it forward with technology as appropriate. Communicate to them why other items are being done and how they will help them.

• Management Communication. You need to talk a lot with the senior management in order to get the resources and buy-in to do the other items on this list. Items that don't seem to make sense to them need to be patiently shown.

• Address technical debt. Consider "1 week in 6" for code fixes - refactoring, improving, cleaning up code. It takes a lot of maturity to say "no features this week, it's code cleanup time", but it's incredibly valuable for the business and also a great moral boost for good programmers.

• Keep the technology up-to-date. Build into your calculations the need to constantly upgrade the components. Consider it "oil changes" - you don't "have" to do them. But you know the long-term consequences of not doing them. I know this from killing a car engine with 78,000 miles on it...