Using CommonJS Modules in Rails with Browserify

Hi,

Javascript and Front-end as a whole are getting harder and harder. In my opinion, the standard delivery of Rails does not meet the modern needs of the Front-end developer. In addition, using Sprockets makes your code very Rails-specific, which makes it harder to build new developers unfamiliar with Rails.

In this video, using an example of a simple React.js application, I will show how you can migrate from Sprockets to Browserify.

This approach provides the following bonuses:

• Managing Javascript package dependencies through npm;
• The best tolling and integration with the IDE;
• Decrease in frontend and backend connectivity;
• The ability to highlight the frontend in a separate application and repository. That may not be a bonus at first glance, but it’s quite convenient when you work as a large team on a large application.

The application code is available on the github: https://github.com/nLight/tutorial-rails-react-browserify