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Comment by joelbluminator | Hacker News Reader

I think the next main challenges for Rails are improving the view layer (see upcoming ViewComponent for example) and better integrating with modern javascript (WebPacker feels half baked for gem writers). To me these issues (which both have to do more with the view layer) are where Rails is very much lacking.

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I agree that the view layer has not been Rail's strength. It's largely handlebars era inspired and has never really changed.

In some ways I think rails never really needed to change because the view layer worked without issues. I always felt the solutions in the modern html/javascript world were messy and half baked, with many unforeseen tradeoffs and complexity for the benefits you get (this summarizes my experience with the whole SPA era).

We are only now starting to have best practices and reasonable design around how the html/js view layer should be done. But I think many people in Rails will continue to prefer the old way of views just because of the simplicity of it.

You'd be surprised how such a small library like turbolinks has held off the entire wave of webpack / react / SPA.

Don't forget Stimulus. The next iteration of Turbolinks is also slated to be more forms-friendly.

I'm fine with rendering html on the server without a SPA. But Rails view helpers need more love I think, watch Github's ViewComponent talk to see what I mean.

Stimulus Reflex is an exciting approach. It's a pattern used in other places well, and I think will provide a great option to those who'd rather not deal with modern Javascript complexity.

> see upcoming ViewComponent for example

What does this refer to?

https://github.com/github/view_component

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