Application performance is always a concern when building in the modern, competitive web and mobile space. At Scout, it’s why we created application performance monitoring tools in the first place. That said, there are steps you can take to build a more performant application. If you are using Ruby on Rails, caching might be one of the best tools on your belt to build a better application.

In today’s post, we’ll look at system tests in Rails 6. System tests are meant to auto-test the way users interact with your application, including the Javascript in your user interface. Minitest, being the default testing framework in Rails, is a great match for system testing. With all the configuration that Rails handles for us, there are just a few steps needed before we have our first tests up and running.

In this post, we’ll look into tried and true methods of improving Rails view performance. Specifically, I will focus on database efficiency, view manipulation, and caching. I think the phrase “premature optimization is the root of all evil” has been taken a little out of context. I’ve often heard developers use this during code reviews when simple optimization techniques are pointed out.

In today’s post, we’ll cover the significant differences and benefits of using structure.sql versus the default schema.rb schema formats in your Ruby on Rails application. In a data-driven world, knowing how to exploit all of your database’s rich features can make the difference between a successful and unsuccessful enterprise.