Others mentioned Turbolinks, but they forgot about remote_form_for and friends.
If you _are_ building a full JavaScript application, Ember.js works really well with Rails + ActiveModel::Serializers. There might be some rough patches until Ember hits 1.0 final, but most of the pieces are in place.
Just want to chime in and say how fantastically ActiveModel::Serializers and the Ember.js REST adapter work together. I built a project with them over the weekend and the experience was overwhelmingly frictionless to a degree I hadn't experienced doing this kind of thing in the past.
JS in Rails had gotten confusing lately, with changes being made over time to supported options and 'golden paths', but insufficient docs on what Rails expected/recommended.
Any time. Please let me know if any parts of it are confusing; the first example I wrote was pretty bad, and someone chipped in with a way better one. :)
In order to use just JavaScript... you just write JavaScript. Nothing special. If you don't want to use it at all, you can also remove the gem from your Gemfile.
> Does all RoRists use CS instead of JS, or is it considered best practice?
It is currently considered best practice to use CS instead of JS, which is why the gem is included in your Gemfile by default. Not every Rails project uses it; Discourse just ported all their stuff to JS, even though they started with CS.
Others mentioned Turbolinks, but they forgot about remote_form_for and friends.
If you _are_ building a full JavaScript application, Ember.js works really well with Rails + ActiveModel::Serializers. There might be some rough patches until Ember hits 1.0 final, but most of the pieces are in place.