Question
If you've used RequireJS with a Rails 3 (esp 3.1) app, how is that working for you? Any configuration tricks or other gotchas that I need to watch out for?
Background
I'm contemplating using RequireJS over the Sprockets-based Asset Pipeline in Rails 3.1, specifically for JavaScript code. I have two motivators for this choice:
- I want to leverage RequireJS' module management for my JS client-side code.
- I'd like a precompilation system that can follow my JS library code into other contexts. To my surprise, the Asset Pipeline precompiler is a baked-in part of Rails, not a part of Sprockets itself.
All feedback appreciated, thanks!
For posterity, here's where I've come to on this question:
RequireJS provides an implementation of the Asynchronous Module Definition API. RequireJS' Why AMD? page lays out the case as to why you'd want to use this.
Sprockets and the Rails 3 Asset Pipeline allow for simple structuring of JavaScript/CoffeeScript code, but don't provide any true module support. For example, there's no namespace control whatsoever in Sprockets.
jQuery (as of 1.7), Underscore, Dojo and numerous other major libraries have implemented AMD support. Several other major JS libraries seem to have AMD support on the near-term horizion (e.g. Backbone.js).
It's certainly possible to create a Rails app that integrates RequireJS. To simplify that process, I've created the requirejs-rails gem on github, with straightforward configuration and Asset Pipeline-aware precompilation for AMD-based code via r.js. The current release is available via:
gem install requirejs-rails
