Episode 50 - Adam Fortuna

Swimming against the current sometimes leads to unexpected treasures. In this fascinating conversation, Adam Fortuna reveals how migrating Hardcover—a social network for readers with 30,000 users—from Next.js back to Ruby on Rails delivered surprising performance improvements and development simplicity.

The journey begins with Adam explaining how Hardcover originated as a response to Goodreads shutting down their API. As a longtime Rails developer who initially chose Next.js for its server-side rendering capabilities, Adam found himself drawn back to Rails once modern tools made it viable to combine Rails' backend strengths with React's frontend interactivity. The migration wasn't a complete rewrite—they preserved their React components while replacing GraphQL with ActiveRecord—and unexpectedly saw significant improvements in page load speeds and SEO rankings.

At the heart of this technical evolution is Inertia.js, which Adam describes as "the missing piece for Rails for a long time." This elegant solution allows direct connections between Rails controllers and React components without duplicating routes, creating a seamless developer experience. We dive into the challenges they faced, particularly with generating Open Graph images and handling API abuse, and how they solved these problems with pragmatic hybrid approaches.

The conversation takes an exciting turn as Adam discusses their work on book recommendation engines, combining collaborative filtering with content analysis to help readers discover their next favorite book. As someone currently enjoying the Dungeon Crawler Carl series (described as "RPG mixed with Hitchhiker's Guide"), Adam's passion for both books and elegant technical solutions shines throughout.

Listen in as we explore how going against conventional wisdom sometimes leads to better outcomes, and discover why Hardcover is now being open-sourced to invite community collaboration. Whether you're interested in Rails, JavaScript frameworks, or book recommendations, this episode offers valuable insights into making technical decisions based on real-world results rather than following trends.

Links

• https://hardcover.app/blog/part-1-how-we-fell-out-of-love-with-next-js-and-back-in-love-with-ruby-on-rails-inertia-js
• https://adamfortuna.com/
• https://bsky.app/profile/adamfortuna.com

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