React: Update or clarify Rails version in "Using Ruby on Rails for Your Backend" lesson resources

[Yateen00]

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• This is not a duplicate of an existing issue (please have a look through our open issues list to make sure)
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Describe your suggestion

The Ruby on Rails course in the curriculum uses Rails 8, but the articles and the assignment section linked in the "Using Ruby on Rails for Your Backend" lesson currently reference Rails 7.

This feels a bit inconsistent and could be confusing for learners following along with Rails 8.

I’m not very experienced with React-Rails integration, so I’m not sure if these resources still work seamlessly with Rails 8 or if they’re still the recommended approach, but I’d be happy to check.

It might be helpful to either:

1. Review the existing articles and confirm if they are compatible with Rails 8, and if so, add a note mentioning that
   OR
2. Replace them with updated resources that explicitly use Rails 8 (if available), or create/update a guide within the lesson if no suitable resources exist

Path

Ruby / Rails

Lesson Url

https://www.theodinproject.com/lessons/react-new-using-ruby-on-rails-for-your-backend

(Optional) Discord Name

No response

(Optional) Additional Comments

No response

[rlmoser99]

Thank you for raising this concern. You're right that the linked articles explicitly reference Rails 7, which could cause confusion.

The good news is that the core concepts and approaches in these articles should remain valid for Rails 8. The JavaScript bundling strategy (esbuild), API development patterns, and React integration techniques haven't fundamentally changed. That said, having "Rails 7" prominently mentioned throughout can definitely be confusing for learners.

Are you currently at this point in the curriculum? If so, would you be willing to test these tutorials with Rails 8 and document any differences you encounter? That would be incredibly helpful.

If you're not at this stage yet (or don't have time to test), we can reach out to other learners in Discord who have recently completed this lesson to gather feedback on their experience with Rails 8.

[Yateen00]

yes I'm currently at that point in the curriculum, i would be happy to test them and report the differences, i will post the findings in the comment so the article can be worded accordingly

[Yateen00]

not sure which ones are relevant, but listing everything for completeness:

• first link

  1. the fourth method (superglue)
     their tutorial has a small mistake
     it says to edit:
     app/config/routes.rb
     but correct path is:
     config/routes.rb

• second link

  1. the article says to copy paste a migration file, but it contains outdated migration verison
     it says:

     class CreateRecipes < ActiveRecord::Migration[5.2]

     but for newer rails, should be:

     class CreateRecipes < ActiveRecord::Migration[8.0]

  2. react router code is outdated, it won’t work

     given:

     export default (
       <Router>
         <Routes>
           <Route path="/" exact component={Home} />
           <Route path="/recipes" exact component={Recipes} />
           <Route path="/recipe/:id" exact component={Recipe} />
           <Route path="/recipe" element={<NewRecipe />} />
         </Routes>
       </Router>
     );

     correct:

     export default (
       <Router>
         <Routes>
           <Route path="/" element={<Home />} />
           <Route path="/recipes" element={<Recipes />} />
           <Route path="/recipe/:id" element={<Recipe />} />
           <Route path="/recipe" element={<NewRecipe />} />
         </Routes>
       </Router>
     );

also on a side note, i saw another method that's getting quite popular, inertia.js. neither of the two mention it, might be worth adding a new link on it too

[rlmoser99]

Awesome! Thank you so much for going through those exercises. This is one of the hard parts of having external resources—as new versions come out, there can be slight differences.

In the issue linked above, another learner has a suggestion for this lesson that might be a good solution.

[Yateen00]

I like that solution, it would be good to add that and add clarifying notes for the existing one if it's decided to keep them.
also, what are your thoughts on inertia.js? I'm new to this so I'm not sure if its worth adding that in the lesson or not

[rlmoser99]

Thanks. I personally don't know much about inertia.js, so I don't really have any thoughts.

We need to look at both of these issues and figure out the best plan for this lesson. I'll see if I can bring these to the attention of the Rails team for some insights.