⚡ Introduction
Hotwire, HTML over the wire, is a modern web development architecture and framework, created by David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), a Danish programmer and creator of Ruby on Rails and Basecamp which is where Hotwire was championed. It focuses on sending HTML over the wire rather than JSON and JavaScript, leading to the performance of a SPA (single-page application) devoid of using any javascript.
To kick things off, we will review an overview of what HotWire is, followed by the other parallel frameworks including Turbo-rails and the stimulus javascript library. Moving on, we will then review some of the core use cases for HotWire, as well as performance benefits, and reasons why HotWire may not be the optimal tool set for your next website or web app project.
☑️ Post Objectives: The desired outcome of this blog post is to introduce developers to HotWire, as well as some of the other parallel frameworks and processes designed to turbo-charge your next app, pun intended. In addition, the other group I’m targeting with this post are business owners currently researching new tech stacks for their upcoming initiatives, depending on your unique business needs and requirements.
🧩 Table of contents
🔌 What is Hotwire?
Hotwire is a suite of web development technologies used to create faster and more responsive web applications. It was created by Basecamp and is composed of two main components: Turbo Streams and Turbo Frames. Turbo Streams works by sending HTML snippets of data instead of full-page refreshes. This allows the browser to quickly render the page without having to fetch and process the entire page. Turbo Frames works by sending HTML frames directly to the browser, which also allows for fast page rendering.
💨 What is Turbo Rails
With Turbo, you can create more responsive and faster web applications by combining HotWire and Stimulus, two web development technologies designed to work in concert with each other. As a result of optimizing for the developer experience (DX), Turbo reduces complexity, referring back to ROR’s early innovations. Using Turbo, interactive and dynamic web applications can be created with the simplicity of Ruby on Rails and the power of HotWire and Stimulus.
While HotWire sends HTML snippets over the wire instead of full-page refreshes, Stimulus adds interactivity by sending HTML frames directly to the browser. By combining the two frameworks, Turbo allows developers to take advantage of the full range of features offered by the Rails framework, including the MVC architecture, reduced complexity through gems, built-in security features, and more, which both end users and developers appreciate.
🏎 Stimulus and Hotwire
By handling all the interactive features of your web pages, Stimulus works with Hotwire to create dynamic components of web applications. Simple annotations allow developers to optimize static or server-rendered HTML by adding additional data attributes, or objects to elements.
Hotwire reduces the amount of data sent over the wire compared to traditional web development architectures. This leads to faster page loads and improved user experience. Additionally, Hotwire can reduce the time needed to create web applications, as developers can focus on building the application instead of dealing with complex front-end code.
This is similar to taking an already-completed jigsaw puzzle and having to only complete the last few pieces instead of having to put the entire puzzle together from inception. This reduces complexity while also optimizing for time to the competition.
⚠️ When Not to Use Hotwire
Hotwire is not suitable for all applications, and will ultimately come down to your business objectives and subsequent acceptance criteria. In the event that your initiative needs to rely heavily on server-side rendering, HotWire is not the optimal toolset. Additionally, Hotwire is not suitable for applications that require complex JavaScript, as the Turbo Streams and Turbo Frames technologies only support simple HTML snippets. Finally, Hotwire is not suitable for applications that require the use of third-party JavaScript libraries, as these libraries are not supported by Hotwire.
🌐 🎖️ Closing Thoughts
In recent years, Ruby on Rails adoption has waned, as measured by the number of new projects pushed to Githhub using Ruby on Rails, and legacy Rails-based apps are slowly migrating to newer, often javascript-based frameworks such as React and Vue. Recently, David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), who founded Rails and Hotwire, has been supporting an initiative called the Rails Foundation that helps reactivate or acquire developers and businesses that have churned from Rails to one of the more modern frameworks for their web-based projects.
The Rails Foundation will support new learning materials, marketing documents, ecosystem development, etc. The goal is to revitalize interest in the framework through this work. With HotWire, Turbo, and Stimulus, developers and businesses will not have to sacrifice speed or performance when they use Rails and Hotwire.
As part of this post, we reviewed Hotwire and its underlying technologies. Additionally, we reviewed each of the associated frameworks for Hotwire and their benefits, including both Stimulus JS and Turbo. The final buckets discussed the performance benefits and the use cases where Hotwire isn’t ideal.
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