Reputation: 383

What is the latest stable Rails version?

What is the latest stable version of rails? I want to install rails 3.1 but I see there is 3.1.3 now, what is the difference? What ruby version is it most compatible with?

Upvotes: 14

Answers (9)

Adam A Allalou

Reputation: 2027

The latest release is 6.0. it was released on August 16, 2019, making Webpack default, adding mailbox routing. Rails 5.2 is still maintained.

Upvotes: 0

Tilo

Reputation: 33752

I recommend to always check on GitHub via the "branches" menu what the latest version is on each branch. You can see the latest version easily by checking the contents of the RAILS_VERSION file

https://github.com/rails/rails

You could also check RubyOnRails.org, but looking at the source code is the most reliable way.

If you already have a Rails App in production, I would highly recommend: don't just blindly take the latest version just because it just came out -- there were many cases in the past where a new version introduced incompatibilities or new bugs which were serious enough to have to wait for a fix before the features in the Rails release were really usable. I know a couple of people who have Production sites and still run 3.0.11 or lower, rather than 3.l.x

Again: check on GitHub under "Issues" which open Issues there are for a release, and/or google "Rails 3.y.z Problems" with the exact version number, so you get a feel of what problems could be introduced by upgrading to a new / the latest version.

On Wikipedia they have a list of historic release dates for the major Rails versions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_on_Rails

Upvotes: 19

ohho

Reputation: 51951

To list all rails versions by gem:

gem list -ra rails | grep -G "^rails\ "

It's also helpful for cheeking what is the latest version for 4.x, 3.x and 2.x too.

Upvotes: 2

jamesc

Reputation: 12867

Latest stable release is always shown on the Ruby on Rails website's home page here http://rubyonrails.org/

Upvotes: 2

RyanWilcox

Reputation: 13972

The Rails version numbers have been explained reasonably well (Joseph Le Brech's answer), but the Ruby version numbers are slightly confusing and I could see why it's not really obvious what's going on there.

Joseph's explanation of Rails version number scheme is correct for Rails, but Ruby has a slightly different approach

1.9.3 is the most recent version of Ruby. Having said that, it was only released maybe a month ago, so it's possible there are breaking issues with certain gems. (Yes, there were breakages. Ruby in general will introduce breaking things between hotfix releases, and it's true here too)

1.9.2 is a more tried and true version of Ruby, having been out for at least 6 months now.

1.8.7 is the last version in the Ruby 1.8 line. Major language rework happened between 1.8 and 1.9, so some older gems may not have made the transition.

My recommendation: use Ruby 1.9.2 and Rails 3.1.3, unless you have really good excuses not to.

Ruby 1.9.2 is probably the safest bet for a Rails newbie, or green-field projects (projects without a lot of preexisting code). Rails 3.1 is an excellent version of Rails, which solves a lot of problems I had with the framework.

Rails 3.1 was released this fall, so old tutorials won't work, or will give odd errors. Try to look and read what version of Rails the book/tutorial/website/blog entry is talking about, before you dive in.

Upvotes: 3

Joseph Le Brech

Reputation: 6653

major.minor.hotfix hotfixes will never change the behavior of an app unless you previously had a workaround for a bug implemented. Apps can easily be upgraded thru minor revisions, but it's usually not worth it and can be a distraction from getting features out of the way.

Upvotes: 1

Elad Meidar

Reputation: 814

usually if you'll pull the latest rails gem, it's the stable one (unless once in history). although you can still use ruby 1.8.x version with the latest rails 3.x, it is more recommended to use 1.9.x.

anyway, everything you might need is in http://guides.rubyonrails.org and some nice people (including myself) are answering all bunch of questions in IRC on irc.freenode.net (#rubyonrails and #railsbridge)

good luck

Upvotes: 0