The update to The Rails and Hotwire Codex

It’s been over a year since the initial release of The Rails and Hotwire Codex. A lot has changed since then.

The last quarter of 2023 saw the release of Rails 7.1 and the long-awaited Strada. As promised when I launched The Rails and Hotwire Codex, I’ve updated the book to make use of Strada. Since the timing was favourable, I’ve also made updates to use the latest features in Rails 7.1 and Turbo 8.

This free update is now available to all readers!

Here’s a list of what’s new.

New topics covered

• Strict locals in partials (PR)
• Change password using password_challenge (Details)
• Using normalize (PR)
• Render a partial for Active Record validation errors (PR)
• Using generates_token_for to reset a password (PR)
• Strada for web-powered native components
• Page refreshes using morphing in Turbo 8 (Details)

Business pricing

Along with this update, I’m introducing a new price of $749 for businesses who’d want to share the book internally with their team. It’s the same product, just at a higher price for business use.

The book has sold a lot better than I’d imagined. I had no audience when I first launched and it’s a relatively expensive purchase. Despite this, I’m nowhere near what I’d consider a “break even” point for the time I’ve invested in the book. This project has been a labour of love, so the monetary return isn’t that important, but I gotta pay rent!

This price point is for businesses who’d like to support me that little bit extra so I can continue to justify investing my time in written tutorials such as this book.

What’s next?

The current release of the book is a complete first edition.

My immediate focus is on my freelance business. The book will now be on pause at least until the end of the year. I’ll continue to publish minor updates for typos and bugs, but I won’t work on any new material until 2025 at the earliest.

A lot new stuff has been released in Rails ecosystem recently, and there’s a lot coming through the pipeline too: SolidQueue, SolidCache, Mission Control, Thruster, Action Notifier …

The next edition will be a paid upgrade. It’ll cover all the new stuff in Rails 8. It will, however, focus completely on PWAs. I’m going to remove all Turbo Native and Strada material.

When I started work on this book in late 2021, I wanted to leverage my slightly unique career trajectory where I’d specialised in Android, iOS, and web apps at different points. It’s now 2024; I haven’t worked on a production iOS codebase since 2019 and an Android codebase since 2017. Technology moves on.

I have both feet firmly in the web world and I have no interest or motivation to work on native projects. It’s becoming close to impossible to deliver a native tutorial at the quality I aspire to with my current skill set, so I’ve decided to drop that aspect.

The native tutorials will live on in the first edition for anyone who wants them. This will always be available to all readers, even after the second edition drops. I can’t continue maintaining them though, it’s not good for my stress levels.

That’s all for now folks. Thanks for all your support and hope you find value in the book!

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