In a recent Ruby meetup, I called JavaScript a disease! It is true! Especially, when comparing JavaScript code to much better, more elegant, and more readable Ruby code! JavaScript looks like ugly smelly mold by comparison. Once you see it, you can never unsee it! That's why I wouldn't touch JavaScript with a ten foot pole if I can help it in 2024. I would use Frontend Ruby instead (e.g. Opal Ruby, WASM, or Ruby2JS). Opal Ruby can usually be setup in about 10 minutes in a Rails app (https://github.com/opal/opal-rails), and it yields smaller downloadables than WASM. I am not sure why anyone in 2024 would go through the Hell of JavaScript in their otherwise pristine Ruby on Rails codebase instead of actually entering Heaven by using Frontend Ruby! Opal Ruby has won a Fukuoka Ruby 2023 Award and supports Ruby 3.1 with the ability to use any pure Ruby gems in the Frontend by simply including them in Gemfile. That removes the need for a complicated JavaScript bundling beast like Webpack. In the past, I might have advocated for still using JavaScript in smaller apps, but the barrier of integrating modern Ruby into the Frontend of Rails applications has become so non-existent with Opal, there are no more excuses for using JavaScript in a Ruby on Rails codebase.
Yahuda Katz mentioned in his keynote speech at RailsConf 2014 (https://youtu.be/9naDS3r4MbY?t=1195), which borrowed ideas from Steve Jobs, that by continuously building more floors for the lower levels of a building in the form of a framework and a community of open-source projects, we enable developers to start development at higher and higher levels than they would have been able to otherwise, thus helping them leapfrog earlier ways of development in ever increasing productivity! In 2024, Frontend Ruby (e.g. Opal) is the next floor level that enables Ruby Software Engineers to start at a higher level of development with much higher productivity and maintainability. I strongly believe that anyone who is not using Frontend Ruby in 2024 is at least half as productive as those who are using Frontend Ruby in their Rails development, regardless of whatever framework they are using. I don't care if someone is enamored by some "cool JavaScript framework xyz"; try to implement that framework in Ruby, and IT WILL BE EVER COOLER AND BETTER IN RUBY! Or, in certain instances, you will discover that Ruby is so much simpler than JavaScript, YOU DO NOT EVEN NEED the "cool" JavaScript frameworks as they are UNCOOL IN RUBYLAND! Glimmer DSL for Web is one Frontend Ruby Framework example that demonstrates the unique simplicity/readability of Ruby that is unmatched by cryptic/too-clever JavaScript code: https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-dsl-web
JavaScript is a disease! Ruby is the cure! Don't be part of the problem by using JavaScript in Ruby on Rails codebases! Be part of the solution by using the language we all love, Ruby, isomorphically in Ruby on Rails applications in 2024 and beyond!
Blog post version for sharing:
https://andymaleh.blogspot.com/2024/10/javascript-is-disease-ruby-is-cure.html
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