2.66 forces ActionView to load too soon

[jdelStrother]

Steps to reproduce

Add ViewComponent >= 2.66 to Gemfile, boot rails (eg rails console).

Expected behavior

ActionView::Base shouldn't be loaded during the initialization process.
Rails does a poor job of making this explicit, IMO - there's a suggestion that you shouldn't load frameworks (ActiveRecord::Base, ActionView::Base etc) during boot here: https://edgeguides.rubyonrails.org/engines.html#load-and-configuration-hooks, since it slows the boot process.
More concretely, loading those frameworks too soon can mean that they ignore configuration - eg setting config.active_record.belongs_to_required_by_default in config/initializers/new_framework_defaults.rb is ignored if ActiveRecord::Base has already been loaded.
As it happens, ActionView::Base doesn't have the same problem because most of its settings are propagated to, eg, ActionView::Helpers::TagHelper in after_initialize, rather than being set directly on ActionView:Base, but that seems a fragile thing to rely on.

Actual behavior

ActionView::Base loads as soon as view_component is required, here:

GEMS/actionview-7.0.3.1/lib/action_view/base.rb:276:in `<class:Base>'
GEMS/actionview-7.0.3.1/lib/action_view/base.rb:141:in `<module:ActionView>'
GEMS/actionview-7.0.3.1/lib/action_view/base.rb:12:in `<main>'
GEMS/view_component-2.66.0/lib/view_component/base.rb:16:in `<module:ViewComponent>'
GEMS/view_component-2.66.0/lib/view_component/base.rb:15:in `<main>'
GEMS/view_component-2.66.0/lib/view_component/engine.rb:4:in `<main>'
GEMS/view_component-2.66.0/lib/view_component.rb:31:in `<main>'
GEMS/bundler-2.3.14/lib/bundler/runtime.rb:60:in `block (2 levels) in require'
GEMS/bundler-2.3.14/lib/bundler/runtime.rb:55:in `each'
GEMS/bundler-2.3.14/lib/bundler/runtime.rb:55:in `block in require'
GEMS/bundler-2.3.14/lib/bundler/runtime.rb:44:in `each'
GEMS/bundler-2.3.14/lib/bundler/runtime.rb:44:in `require'
GEMS/bundler-2.3.14/lib/bundler.rb:176:in `require'
/Users/jon/Developer/web/config/application.rb:43:in `<main>'
GEMS/railties-7.0.3.1/lib/rails/command/actions.rb:22:in `require_application!'
GEMS/railties-7.0.3.1/lib/rails/command/actions.rb:14:in `require_application_and_environment!'
GEMS/railties-7.0.3.1/lib/rails/commands/console/console_command.rb:101:in `perform'
GEMS/thor-1.2.1/lib/thor/command.rb:27:in `run'
GEMS/thor-1.2.1/lib/thor/invocation.rb:127:in `invoke_command'
GEMS/thor-1.2.1/lib/thor.rb:392:in `dispatch'
GEMS/railties-7.0.3.1/lib/rails/command/base.rb:87:in `perform'
GEMS/railties-7.0.3.1/lib/rails/command.rb:48:in `invoke'
GEMS/railties-7.0.3.1/lib/rails/commands.rb:18:in `<main>'
bin/rails:6:in `<main>'

System configuration

Rails version: 7.0.3

Ruby version: 3.1.2

Gem version: 2.6.9

[joelhawksley]

@jdelStrother thanks for filing this bug. Would you be interested in taking a crack at fixing it?

[jdelStrother]

Sure, will take a look - it might be a week or so before I get chance though.