[katello-devel] Rails 3.2 features

[David Davis]

I just wanted to make a list of features that we'll get upgrading to Rails 3.2. I'm sending these out to inform everyone but I think it's worth reiterating that it's going to be painful to upgrade. It won't be as bad as going from Rails 2 to Rails 3 but it's not going to be easy either. Without futher ado...

* Probably the biggest thing is the asset pipeline. It does everything from compiling languages (like SASS) to uglifying js code. Check out more info at http://guides.rubyonrails.org/asset_pipeline.html
* New migration features. You no longer have to write up/down methods for the most part. Instead you just write "change" methods. More info at http://guides.rubyonrails.org/migrations.html
* Multiple levels of has_many :through
* Create key value stores in the database (http://blog.rawonrails.com/2012/02/using-activerecordstore-with-rails-32.html)
* New active record methods like pluck (http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Calculations.html#method-i-pluck)
* Scoped mass assignment. Helpful for locking down attributes per permission. (http://launchware.com/articles/whats-new-in-edge-scoped-mass-assignment-in-rails-3-1)
* Slow query logger http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2011/12/6/what-s-new-in-edge-rails-explain/. I've used http://explain.depesz.com/ to help analyze query explain output from postgres.
* Encrypted fields (passwords, etc) http://railscasts.com/episodes/270-authentication-in-rails-3-1
* New generator stuff. You can do "rails g scaffold Person name email" instead of "rails g scaffold Person name:string email:string". Or if you want to be really crafty: rails g scaffold Person name:index email:uniq.

David

David