What is the Ember route? It is most certainly not a Rails route.
Coming to the Ember framework with a Rails perspective has caused a bit of confusion for me.
There are a few assumptions that I have made, and now realize the need to go back and get the basic terminology correct before proceeding.
To understand the Ember route, two things must be noted. First, you have to understand Ember’s fundamental premise:
the web derives its power from the ability to bookmark and share URLs
Ember is built around a core commitment to the URL.
Second, it is important to distinguish between the Router and the route. The Router is:
responsible for displaying templates, loading data, and otherwise setting up application state.
It does so by matching the current URL to the routes that you've defined.
So the Router is the basic building block to the app. This is important. When you enter
ember g resource user
You get a User model, route, template, and a unit test file (perhaps broadly similar to Rails scaffold), and this:
#app/router.js
...
export default Router.map(function() {
this.resource('user', function() {});
});
Under this resource,Ember routes can be defined, and you get some for free, but the key takeaway is the Router
is loading the application state.
So what is an Ember route? The Ember route:
tells the template which model to display.
In Rails-speak, this is functionality is carried out by the Rails Controller, not root/config/routes.rb!
So when I hear Ember route, it has been helpful for me to compare it to Rails Controller.
Further, Rails root/config/routes.rb is handled by the Router not routes.
This has alleviated some preconceived misconceptions that I have as I learn Ember.
Obviously there is not one-to-one functionality, but it is important to understand that Rails routes and Ember routes
are accomplishing two different things.
I want to dive a bit deeper into the Router and write it up for a different post and will keep trying to work through the
clarification of Ember-speak v. Rails-speak.
Please hit me up on Twitter if you have any additional insight/clarification/corrections on this.