Is there a Rails 4 backports library?

Question

Over time, we're upgrading pieces of our Rails 3.2.x application to be Rails 4 compatible. For example, any of our new code is written using strong parameters instead of attr_accessible. We'd like to take a similar approach for features like ActiveRecord's none and find_or_create_by so we don't have to change much code when we finish our upgrade to Rails 4.

Is there a Rails 4 backports library that can assist us with this? We currently have a collection of monkey patches, but it seems like there would be a gem for this.

Answer 1

No, there is not. As you noticed, certain features are provided as a gem (such as strong_params) that you can easily install in your previous version.

In case of some serious deprecations, the Rails core team normally includes a deprecation message in the old version along with a backport, so that you can fix the deprecation before upgrading the release.

In the case of none, this is not a deprecation but a feature. Unless you find this in a gem, you are forced to upgrade to Rails 4 in order to use it.

find_or_create_by is a deprecation, but Rails 4.0 still supports it. Thus you can upgrade and remove the code later.

Generally speaking, a backport with deprecation is normally provided only for those changes that will cause an incompatibility immediately after the upgrade preventing your application to even start or run properly.