Introduction

This article How to improve Rails performance with the Russian doll caching technique? is part I of a series called: "Russian doll caching in Rails".

Part I is an introduction to the topic.

I hope you enjoy it.

Web applications

Web applications have become increasingly complex over the years, driven by the growing demand for more sophisticated and feature-rich online services. With the advent of modern web technologies, developers are now able to create highly interactive and dynamic applications that are capable of running seamlessly across multiple devices.

In the past, it was common to see applications that could run only on one specific device. today, it's normal and common to share data among various other web applications, increasing the complexity.

Complexity of applications

The complexity of web applications can vary widely depending on the specific requirements of the project. Simple web applications may consist of a few pages with basic functionality, while more complex applications can involve multiple interconnected components such as databases, APIs, and external services. Every used resource requires some kind of processing.

Besides, web applications need to be developed with security in mind in order to protect sensitive data from cyber threats.

Performance of Rails applications

The performance of a Rails application can depend on a variety of factors such as the specific application, the size and complexity of the codebase, and the underlying hardware and infrastructure used to run the application. However, in general, Rails applications are considered to be slower than some other web frameworks.

One reason for this is that Rails is a feature-rich framework that prioritizes developer productivity and ease of use over raw performance. As a result, Rails applications may require more computational resources and may be slower to respond to requests than more lightweight or optimized frameworks.

Caching

Caching is a critical aspect of performance optimization in any web application, including Ruby on Rails. It can drastically help reduce the number of database queries and HTTP requests, thereby improving response times and reducing server load.

In a Ruby on Rails application, caching can be implemented in various ways, such as page caching, action caching, fragment caching, and HTTP caching. Each type of caching has its specific use cases and benefits, but they all aim to speed up the application and reduce server load.

It's important to keep cache keys consistent and up-to-date with the data being cached. If the cache key becomes stale or outdated, the cache may return incorrect or incomplete data to the user. Therefore, it's essential to use a caching strategy that properly identifies and updates cache keys when the underlying data changes.

Role of Developers

As a result, web developers must possess a broad range of technical skills and expertise to build, test, and maintain these complex applications.

We can make our application faster, more scalable, and more responsive to user requests, by using the appropriate caching techniques.

Russian Doll Caching

Russian dolls are also called Matryoshka dolls and nesting dolls. They are a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside another.

Conclusion

That's all for today. Thanks for reading the article How to improve Rails performance with the Russian doll caching technique? Part I.

I hope this article helped you. Let me know if you have any questions.

Your thoughts, suggestions and corrections are more than welcome.

By the way, feel free to drop your suggestions on new blog articles.

Hope to see you next time.