## Outline
- Why Rails doubled down on HTML-first delivery.
- Turbo Drive: respect the round trip; avoid client-only state across pages.
- Stimulus: one job per controller; targets and values over DOM queries.
- Lifecycle (`connect` / `disconnect`) as part of your public API.
- Progressive enhancement as default posture.
## Draft
Hotwire exists because **shipping HTML from the server** still beats defaulting every screen to a client archipelago. You can get snappy UX with a **small** JavaScript surface—without standing up a second application that re-implements validation for sport.
The failure mode is not Turbo. It is **Stimulus sprawl**: controllers that grow until you have rebuilt the SPA you said you did not want, except with fewer guardrails.
### Turbo Drive still goes to the server
Drive makes many navigations feel lighter than a full document reload. Latency does not disappear—you still wait on Ruby, the database, and whatever caches you own. The win is smoother paint and fewer jarring full resets. When a feature acts weird after “go somewhere and come back,” ask whether you relied on **client-only state** that Turbo never promised to preserve.
Use each request as a reason to send **meaningful HTML**, and use HTTP caching where it is actually safe—not everywhere by reflex.
### Stimulus works when controllers stay small
Name behaviors, not page zones: **toggle**, **copy**, **dismiss**, **sync**. If one controller reaches into three unrelated parts of the DOM, split it or pull a tiny ES module into `connect` instead of chaining `querySelector` like it is 2014.
Prefer **`data-*-target`** and **`data-*-value`** so the markup documents the contract. Designers and QA can read the HTML and know what attaches where.
### Lifecycle is not optional polish
Register listeners in **`connect`** and tear them down in **`disconnect`**. Skipping teardown is how you get the ticket: “Only breaks after I visit the page twice.”
### Progressive enhancement is still a flex
The story should read without JavaScript. Layer Stimulus for niceties—dropdowns, copy-to-clipboard, theme persistence—not as a paywall on the words.
