Rails inline Javascript and Best Practices

Question

I\'m kinda new to using Rails, and an app I am working on is progressing well - however I\'m looking though the generated HTML and noticed things like...

Answer 1

Sometimes inline JavaScript is useful for critical, fast views (e.g., certain landing pages), or small snippets (e.g., Facebook SDK initialization, Analytics/Kissmetrics initialization scripts, etc.) where using no external libraries can speed up page load. For those cases, I recommend using a partial _facebook.js.erb inside layouts, and define a helper:

module ApplicationHelper
  def facebook_tag
    content_tag :script, render(partial: 'layouts/facebook.js')
  end
end

Then, create the file _facebook.js.erb and include the inline JavaScript inside application.html.erb using the defined helper:

<%= facebook_tag %>

For any other case, such as the partials you mention that inline JavaScript, I recommend using unobtrusive JavaScript as other answers suggest.