By Justin Gordon, January 26, 2016

This document is an extension and complement to The Rails Doctrine. If you haven’t read that document, I suggest you do so first.

As stated in the React on Rails README, the project objective is to provide an opinionated and optimal framework for integrating Ruby on Rails with modern JavaScript tooling and libraries. When considering what goes into react_on_rails, we ask ourselves, is the functionality related to the intersection of using Rails and with modern JavaScript? A good example is view helper integration of React components on a Rails view. If the answer is yes, then the functionality belongs right here. In other cases, we’re releasing separate npm packages or Ruby gems. For example, we needed an easy way to integrate Twitter Bootstrap with Webpack, and we released the npm bootstrap-loader.

Besides the project objective, let’s stick with the “Rails Doctrine” and keep the following in mind.

Optimize for Programmer Happiness

The React on Rails setup provides several key components related to front-end developer happiness:

It’s Thanksgiving today! I’m taking a few minutes to put down a few thoughts that I hope will bring you, your family, and your friends “success” in the coming year.

Success is ambiguous. Is it being a millionaire? Being famous? Winning competitions?

I’d say it’s happiness! This image captures part of my definition of success. Jimmie Hepp took this picture just a couple days before I wrote this article.

Note, I said happiness is just a part of success. Balance in life is key to success. While I have the means to spend all my time surfing, I’d find greater happiness in striking a balance with my other passion, which is creating great software and an organization called “ShakaCode”. ShakaCode is more than just a company; it’s a community. A large part of what ShakaCode does is giving away free code and training to world’s software community, as shown by our open source projects, our ShakaCode forum, and my RailsOnMaui blog.

A big part of the DNA of ShakaCode is that we’re remote first. This means that you can be involved with ShakaCode regardless of just about any factor other than having a decent computer, good Internet, and a true passion to learn and contribute. And if you have family duties, just hate time wasted commuting, or want to live at a ski resort or a remote surf break – that’s all OK. Educational background, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, etc. all do not matter to us. All of our team members share this philosophy and this is how we find new team members.

This gesture is more than just a mere wave or thumbs up. The shaka is a symbol of the “Aloha spirit,” which is the coordination of the mind and spirit to think and exude good feelings to others. (by Megan Denny, www.padi.com)

by Justin Gordon with help from the ShakaCode Team, September, 2015

Who is ShakaCode?

It’s the global web development software consultancy and product company started by Justin Gordon, AKA “railsonmaui” in the Ruby on Rails world. We’re focused on what we believe to be the best technologies for web development. Today, those are Ruby on Rails and React. But it’s not just us, we like to think that it’s the larger WE in the open source community that loves collaborating on beautiful code.