Add a default .browserslistrc file:

[Edouard-chin]

Add a default .browserslistrc file:

• Context

  The .browserslistrc file is a standard configuration file used by the browserslist library which itself is used by multiple front-end tools like autoprefixer.

  TailwindCSS ships and run by default autoprefixer when compiling assets.

  When Rails shipped by default with webpack, the .browserslistrc file was generated by webpacker. Now that Rails tries to move away from webpack, new applications won't get that file generated, although it's very useful.

  Problem

  Let's take this CSS file as input and the placeholder-shown property which has only partial support in Internet Explorer (I know it's no longer maintained but it's just as an example).

  📝 CSS generated

  Input

    input:placeholder-shown {
      border-radius: 5px;
    }

  Output

  input:-moz-placeholder-shown {
    border-radius: 5px;
  }
  input:placeholder-shown {
    border-radius: 5px;
  }

  TailwindCSS won't generate the right property for IE because it uses the default list of browsers provided by browserslist.

  Solution

  By having a .browserslistrc file by default, a user can quickly find and modify if to support whatever browser they want. To reuse the example from above:

  📝 CSS generated with a .browserslistrc file

  .browserslistrc

  defaults
  IE 11
  

  Output

  input:-moz-placeholder-shown {
    border-radius: 5px;
  }
  input:-ms-input-placeholder {
    border-radius: 5px;
  }
  input:placeholder-shown {
    border-radius: 5px;
  }

  My rationale on generating that file out of the box instead of letting users create it if needed is mostly to make things explicit and more discoverable. It's maybe due to my lack of experience on front-end related work, but it wasn't clear why new Rails app didn't have it and how I should proceed to tweak the list of supported browsers.

  I also saw a few blog posts explaining how to move away from webpack to importmap and making the mistake to remove that .browserslistrc file from their Rails app, thinking it wouldn't be used anymore.

[flavorjones]

LGTM

[dhh]

Appreciate where this is coming from, and I wouldn't mind a doc fix, but don't think this is what most people will need most of the time. So generating an extra file, and the cognitive overhead each one carries, isn't worth the tradeoff in my book. Feel free to open a PR with a brief mention of this for the docs.