JavaScript for Rails Developers

Intro

For as long as Ruby on Rails exists, Rails developers have tried not to write JavaScript. They even embraced a subset of it, called CoffeeScript. It would let you write JavaScript that looked more like Ruby. But today, JavaScript has improved a fair bit. Yes, it is still more verbose than Ruby, but if you can see beyond the excess of characters you will see a quite elegant language.

A language that, if you want to write modern web- and SaaS-applications, you can not do without. In this book I want to demystify, explain some of the quirks and present some modern (and fun!) syntax. This pragmatic book is short—you should be able to read it within a few hours. But every chapter is packed with a lot of information you can put into practice right away. It is set up in such a way you can just follow along from front to back, but I’ve also tried to divide the chapters so you can easily look up certain techniques or specifics.

Who am I to write this book? I am a designer, turned developer, turned founder of multiple, successful SaaS apps built in Ruby on Rails for almost 10 years (been building for the web since 1997). Besides that I have helped numerous teams around the world with their Ruby on Rails apps with loads of JavaScript. And early 2024, I founded Rails Designer, a Rails UI Components Library, a one-man agency and a vessel for many dozens articles around modern Rails and front end development.

I hope that in a few hours, when you finish this book, you will see some of the same joy, like me, when writing JavaScript.

If you find you are stuck or something is unclear to you, feel free to reach out at: jsbook@railsdesigner.com.

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