I feel like this article nails a few things, then builds a structure around some things that just aren't true. its totally possible, for example, to have validations that apply to a normal user but not an admin. The real problem that's missed in this article is that validations shouldn't be on the data or the persistence, but on the interaction.

I'm totally with the OP on saying goodbye to Rails proper, but if one doesn't understand the essence of why the 'breakup' is necessary and good, the same mistakes will be repeated with the next language/framework/platform one chooses to date.

I am playing with the position that if you want to use Rails as intended by its creators and your application is too complex to implement in ActiveAdmin without a lot of accidental complexity, you should find another framework.[1]

[1] Substitute another well-designed scaffolding engine if you like. The statement still feels true if you duck type that piece.

Good stuff; resonates with the reasons I've stayed away entirely. How much time have you invested in checking out Clojure? The Clojure community while a bit small is fairly hot. If you find the learning curve intimidating, but haven't taken much time to dig in, give it maybe 10 solid hours and I think you'll love it. The syntax is a tiny bit off-putting at first for a non-Lisper, but once it clicks, it clicks HARD.

As I got into it, I discovered that I have to hold myself back from getting too crazy too quickly. It's just that easy.

I do love it. I've spent enough time with it to build a couple of toy web services and found it great.

Only issue was trying to learn emacs so I could use paredit. Later I gave that up and used something with vim.

It's probably the number one language I would like to spend time with.

Also, I'm usually not much for these kind of exercises, but this helped me a lot with the syntax: https://www.4clojure.com/

I got a lot out of Clojure koans, myself. Rich Hickey's talks are also phenomenal. I'm itching to take a crack at designing a service around Datomic.

Emacs Live is a pretty legit pre-baked environment for use with Clojure, and pretty sexy to boot, decent themes (but needs a Solarized one.) It's also preconfigured to play nice with lein via CIDER nrepl for that "live hacking" experience. There are still a few tricks, and it's a little heavy, but it's quite good for a packaged toolkit. I definitely feel the advantages over Vim, for Clojure at least.

Sadly, I too find myself unable to set aside the time I'd like to for Clojure.

Again, really enjoyed the article!

Just started learning rails a few months ago. As an aspiring web-developer it really puts me off and just start learning another web framework :( Have i just been wasting my time with Rails? Whats the next step? Any advice?