In this episode of ‘On Rails’, host Robby Russell (@planetargon) chats with Rosa Gutiérrez, Principal Programmer at 37signals, about the technical decisions behind Solid Queue - a database-backed job queue replacing Resque in their Rails apps.

Rosa dives into why her team built Solid Queue, how it improves reliability, visibility, and maintainability, and the challenges of migrating live apps like Hey during active development. Learn how they tackled recurring jobs, long-running tasks, and testing strategies, plus insights on system design, scaling, and the joy of deleting old code.

Topics:

Why 37signals replaced Resque
Building a job queue with ActiveJob + MySQL
Transparent job states & using Mission Control as a dashboard
Migrating with minimal impact
Best practices for recurring and long-running jobs
Recommended tools, testing gems, and dev books

Links:

Rosa's migration script for scheduled jobs from Resque to Solid Queue
Acidic Job
Chaotic Job
Rosa.codes
Rosa’s videos on Ruby Events
Rosa on the 37signals Dev blog
Rosa on Github
Rosa on LinkedIn
Book Recommendation: Refactoring, Second Edition by Martin Fowler

#RubyOnRails #SolidQueue #BackgroundJobs #37signals #OnRailsPodcast

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On Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails.

On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation, and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon.

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