I’ve used RJS in the past for RoR projects and felt terribly constrained by what it could do. However, using Javascript alone felt/feels ugly and hack-y. This is particularly true when writing Javascript that manipulates Rails automagically generated from variable names. I haven’t seen much talk about RJS in the blogosphere recently. Is RJS being used in new RoR projects or have people decided that it’s not effective? Is it still being actively developed and its function-coverage expanded? I’d appreciate some insight into the current state of affairs.
So, who’s using RJS (and how is it working out for you) and who’s using javascript?
I recommend writing straight javascript. I believe that – yes – RJS is going out of style. One reason for this is the popularity of the sexy jQuery library. Another is the model of RJS – in that it is a ruby wrapper around javascript, and so for any javascript library you need to use, you will need a corresponding ruby wrapper library, which means more grunt work somebody’s going to have to do(and another gem you’ll have to depend on). Also, although the idea of making a request and receiving back executable javascript is nice, I believe there are many who don’t like this style, or at least don’t think it’s appropriate for certain situations. I personally have learned javascript and have come to like it a lot, and I recommend you give it a try.