React is Dead. Long live Reactive Rails! Long live StimulusReflex and ViewComponent!

Let me tell you about the feeling that I get when I encounter something poised to revolutionize my work as a software developer. A specific, tangible physical sensation in my bones; a tingle in my skin and a buzz in my fingertips. Like having done a little too much cocaine, if you know what I mean.

Apparently this mania hits me approximately every 5 years.

The first time was in 2000 when I read The Pragmatic Programmer and Kent Beck’s first XP book and they totally upended my ideas of what it meant to be a software engineer. Before that, to be honest, I was just thrilled with the money I was making, but craftsmanship and extreme programming turned me into such an evangelist I ended up founding Agile Atlanta.

The second time was in February 2005 when I wrote my first Ruby on Rails app together with Carlos Villela at ThoughtWorks. It was a clone of OkCupid, but for matching up people to be staffed…