[marknutter]

I'm not proposing web apps don't us URLs. What I am saying is that the lines are being blurred as to when a web app should use urls and when they shouldn't. When I click a tab on a nested component in a larger page, should the url route there? Should the url route change when a modal pops up? If an accordion control slides open should the url change? Not sure? Neither am I. Routing on the web is not as simple as you're implying it is.

You're right about ember-data being optional but I mentioned it because it's what we were using on the project I was on.

I guess what I meant when mentioning rails was that there's a lot less change happening on the server-side than on the client-side these days so it's easier to confidently build an opinionated framework there. It's hard to favor convention over configuration when the very platforms you're targeting don't have established, agreed upon conventions.