How can I make my Ruby on Rails 2.3.4 application "Rails 3-ready"

Question

I'm developing an application with Ruby on Rails that I want to maintain for at least a few years, so I'm concerned about the next version coming up soon.

Going from Rails 1 to Rails 2 was such a big pain that I didn't bother and froze my gems and let the application die, alone, in the dark.

On this project I don't want to do that. First because this new version looks awesome, but also because this application may turn into a real product.

How can I prepare my application so that it will be upgradable with as little changes as possible.
How time consuming do you think switching version will be?
And what about my server? Deployment?

I'm already looking at deprecation notices... what else can I do?

user_17174 · Answer

There are some major changes in Rails 3, I posted about my experience upgrading my app to Rails 3 here: http://rails3.community-tracker.com/permalinks/5/notes-from-the-field-upgrading-to-rails-3

A good start in preparing would be to migrate over to using bundler. And doing a very deep review of strings that will go through the new XSS protection scheme.

user_182870 · Answer

There are going to be some automated compatibility checkers. Also, keep an eye on http://www.railsplugins.org/ so that you know if the libraries you depend on are going to be upgraded. The Rails Core team seems to be giving a lot of advance notice to the community this time around, so any lib that is actively maintained should be good to go.

How can I make my Ruby on Rails 2.3.4 application "Rails 3-ready"

8 Answers