request: discussion of webpack vs asset pipeline

Help us help you! Please choose one:

• My app crashes with react-rails, so I’ve included the stack trace and the exact steps which make it crash.
• My app doesn’t crash, but I’m getting unexpected behavior. So, I’ve described the unexpected behavior and suggested a new behavior.
• I’m trying to use react-rails with another library, but I’m having trouble. I’ve described my JavaScript management setup (eg, Sprockets, Webpack…), how I’m trying to use this other library, and why it’s not working.
• I have another issue to discuss.

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As someone who is trying to get started using this gem, I’m asking whether you would be willing to include a discussion of the tradoffs between using webpack and asset pipeline either in your readme or linked from there. I know I feel like that’s a decision I’m making without understanding it, and I’m sure others do, too.

Thanks for your consideration.

[mustmodify]

Hi @BookOfGreg – thanks for your generous response.

You said:

I suspect Rails devs finding their way here will already have some awareness of JS ecosystem if they come seeking native React integration.

I guess that’s true. I have “some awareness” of it. But what I said about npm, for example, was a complete guess. So my principle question is “Assume I know not-very-much. How will this decision change my life in dev and in production?” Some thoughts:

• The thing I mentioned about NPM vs gems.
• I believe that webpack and sprockets both concatenate all js files into one… if that’s true, I would say that. And I assume it also does minification and compression?
• Will webpacker do fingerprints like asset pipeline?
• But WebPacker isn’t what turns ES6 code into “acceptable” javascript, right? That’s another tool often bundled with it… So is that available either way?
• Will I need to commit a webpacker asset file to the repo? Or will it be generated during precompile? If so, is that handled for me, or do I need to add something to capistrano / etc?
• With the react_on_rails gem I needed to have a separate process watching webpacker. But I don’t need that for the asset pipeline. Is that true here? How should I set that up?

[mustmodify]

My principle question above could perhaps be better stated this way:

“I use Rails. I like the asset pipeline. It provides all kind of production goodness. I’m at peace with adding js to my app because client-side code is good. But why would I consider going outside the asset pipeline? Not only that, but I’m moving only part of my assets outside it!”

PS bonus points for figuring out how to get webpacker to work while files are at app/assets/javascript. 😃