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Re-Frame: Build web apps in ClojureScript and React

day8.github.io

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Re: Re-Frame: Build web apps in ClojureScript and React

#11

Post by invalidOrTaken »

dennisy wrote: post #7

I would love to try out all these cool alternatives to pure JS plus Vue or React, but at what point is this a good idea for a commercial production application?

At this point I think it's safe to say---clojurescript has proven itself and is not a risk.

An excellent language, good libraries (Metosin's ambidextrous router, Reitit, stands out here), the best development story with Figwheel, and oh, dead code elimination for free, as the cljs compiler leverages Google's Closure (not to be mistaken for Clojure) compiler.

Not to mention that cljs is actually a better fit for React even than JavaScript---implicit return, bias towards functional programming, and it requires no magic JSX step---in cljs you just write your html in nested data literals. It's a dream.

I haven't even mentioned black magic like core.async, or that now your front-end devs have a foothold on the JVM rather than the more-impoverished Node ecosystem(oh, you want to keep Node? Well, cljs runs there too!).

Pitch is a well-funded German startup making a presentation tool in the browser---as in, they can't afford to get their front end wrong---and they're comfortably using cljs.

Frankly at this point I think anyone serious about the frontend, who wants it to be good, not just passable, should be using clojurescript. There are reasons not to---if you need something today, and don't have time to learn a lisp---but for anything not due next week, I'd recommend cljs.

Re: Re-Frame: Build web apps in ClojureScript and React

#12

Post by spapas82 »

thom wrote: post #8
MikeOfAu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. In my experience, this an unusual opinion (to me, the author). Over the years the re-frame documentation has been the most praised part of the project. Could you point out the area which you found unnecessarily difficult, and I'll happily review it. Could you also include your background, so I know where you are coming from? The docs are a little oriented towards JS developers coming across, but perhaps you are…

Said with love, happy re-frame user: many developers want to be able to match use cases to docs and code examples as quickly and directly as possible. The re-frame docs contain a lot of very verbose motivation and philosophy (over multiple pages) which while useful context, obfuscates the practical content. All of re-frame’s philosophy would be immediately evident from some code examples on the top level readme on Gi…

This is on point. Whenever I have tried reading the re-frame docs (I actually have tried more than once during the prevt years) I always get frustrated/bored from the lack of actual use cases and explanations of why this could be useful to me!

The docs just seem to academical for me... They would be excellent for a master's thesis but not for somebody deciding if he would like to invest time into a project.

Re: Re-Frame: Build web apps in ClojureScript and React

#13

Post by MikeOfAu »

harperlee wrote: post #10
MikeOfAu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. In my experience, this an unusual opinion (to me, the author). Over the years the re-frame documentation has been the most praised part of the project. Could you point out the area which you found unnecessarily difficult, and I'll happily review it. Could you also include your background, so I know where you are coming from? The docs are a little oriented towards JS developers coming across, but perhaps you are…

I’m another person, but: when I initially read an old version of it (about 4 years ago) I liked the comprehensiveness but disliked the tone. Perhaps due to not being a native english speaker, it distracted me and made it harder to get the point. Quickly peering it it seems that it has been improved, although some things there remind me of what I felt, such as: McCoy might report "It's MVC, Jim, but not as we know it"…

Well, I'm glad to hear it might have improved. After taking a battering in this thread, I'll take any possible small win.

What you reference is an attempt at a joke which requires certain cultural knowledge (Early Star Trek). On this point, I'm probably unlikely to change, and will just have to ask for your forgiveness. I like my docs to have an occasional joke, whether I'm the reader or the writer. But I am aware that this is not everyone's cup of tea (English cultural reference).

Re: Re-Frame: Build web apps in ClojureScript and React

#14

Post by MikeOfAu »

spapas82 wrote: post #12
thom wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Said with love, happy re-frame user: many developers want to be able to match use cases to docs and code examples as quickly and directly as possible. The re-frame docs contain a lot of very verbose motivation and philosophy (over multiple pages) which while useful context, obfuscates the practical content. All of re-frame’s philosophy would be immediately evident from some code examples on the top level readme on Gi…

This is on point. Whenever I have tried reading the re-frame docs (I actually have tried more than once during the prevt years) I always get frustrated/bored from the lack of actual use cases and explanations of why this could be useful to me! The docs just seem to academical for me... They would be excellent for a master's thesis but not for somebody deciding if he would like to invest time into a project.

Thanks for the feedback. In this regard, I think things have improved a little over the last 8 months, stepwise.

In our busy world, people want more immediate summaries and progress. These docs arose out of me trying to teach my team how to think about coding in Clojure and to use re-frame (we were all new to the language at the time), so they definitely have a didactic flavour.

I continue to nudge them in the direction you recommend.

Re: Re-Frame: Build web apps in ClojureScript and React

#15

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #11
dennisy wrote: post #7

I would love to try out all these cool alternatives to pure JS plus Vue or React, but at what point is this a good idea for a commercial production application?

At this point I think it's safe to say---clojurescript has proven itself and is not a risk. An excellent language, good libraries (Metosin's ambidextrous router, Reitit, stands out here), the best development story with Figwheel, and oh, dead code elimination for free , as the cljs compiler leverages Google's Closure (not to be mistaken for Clojure) compiler. Not to mention that cljs is actually a better fit for Reac…

Conversely, I found the experience pretty terrible when I worked on a big cljs/reagent/reframe/figwheel app over the course of a couple of years. It was slow, prone to runtime errors (though not as much as JavaScript), and often presented weird edge-cases at the intersection between the Lisp world and the React world. The company ended up abandoning all this stuff after having been big Clojure/ClojureScript evangelists for a long time.

On the other hand, after having built several large Elm applications, Elm is still the tool I'd recommend. On my current ~10KLOC Elm project, compilation is near enough instant, the structure of the code is more rigid so it's far easier to understand — even for beginners — and there's far less potential for runtime errors to occur.

Of course, this is the classic religious war in programming, so I expect someone to appear soon and point out that there is no empirical evidence to support the idea that a type system like the one in Elm or Haskell results in fewer errors in practice. Or perhaps they'll say jet fuel can't melt steel beams.

Re: Re-Frame: Build web apps in ClojureScript and React

#16

Post by MikeOfAu »

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #15
invalidOrTaken wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point I think it's safe to say---clojurescript has proven itself and is not a risk. An excellent language, good libraries (Metosin's ambidextrous router, Reitit, stands out here), the best development story with Figwheel, and oh, dead code elimination for free , as the cljs compiler leverages Google's Closure (not to be mistaken for Clojure) compiler. Not to mention that cljs is actually a better fit for Reac…

Conversely, I found the experience pretty terrible when I worked on a big cljs/reagent/reframe/figwheel app over the course of a couple of years. It was slow, prone to runtime errors (though not as much as JavaScript), and often presented weird edge-cases at the intersection between the Lisp world and the React world. The company ended up abandoning all this stuff after having been big Clojure/ClojureScript evangelis…

Hmm. This is likely to devolve into a static vs dynamic typing borefest. There is no right here: it is just different brain wiring (preferences), backed by motivated reasoning on both sides.

But to address the three points you raise...

I'm surprised to hear that there was a problem at the Reagent/React boundary. We find that works sooooo well.

I genuinely love Elm's claims around 0 runtime errors. It gets my nerdy juices flowing. But then I remind myself that this is simply not a problem I have. We might get one every blue moon (in production) and then it is fixed and deployed about 10 mins later. I have many technical challenges (eg. Kubernetes etc), but runtime problems is not in my top 20.

As to slowness, I can't comment without knowing more. We don't have that problem but that doesn't mean it might not exist in some domains. Then again, it could be bad design decisions. Dunno.

One thing for sure, I'd choose Elm over javascript any day, but ClojureScript is just working too well for us right now.

Re: Re-Frame: Build web apps in ClojureScript and React

#17

Post by hellofunk »

MikeOfAu wrote: post #13
harperlee wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m another person, but: when I initially read an old version of it (about 4 years ago) I liked the comprehensiveness but disliked the tone. Perhaps due to not being a native english speaker, it distracted me and made it harder to get the point. Quickly peering it it seems that it has been improved, although some things there remind me of what I felt, such as: McCoy might report "It's MVC, Jim, but not as we know it"…

Well, I'm glad to hear it might have improved. After taking a battering in this thread, I'll take any possible small win. What you reference is an attempt at a joke which requires certain cultural knowledge (Early Star Trek). On this point, I'm probably unlikely to change, and will just have to ask for your forgiveness. I like my docs to have an occasional joke, whether I'm the reader or the writer. But I am aware th…

The re-frame docs and "marketing" speak, like on its front github page, would do very well to remove a lot of the self-congratulatory tone, frankly. A lot of it reads like someone very impressed with themselves rather than text about how to use an actual tool.

Re: Re-Frame: Build web apps in ClojureScript and React

#18

Post by MikeOfAu »

hellofunk wrote: post #17
MikeOfAu wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm glad to hear it might have improved. After taking a battering in this thread, I'll take any possible small win. What you reference is an attempt at a joke which requires certain cultural knowledge (Early Star Trek). On this point, I'm probably unlikely to change, and will just have to ask for your forgiveness. I like my docs to have an occasional joke, whether I'm the reader or the writer. But I am aware th…

The re-frame docs and "marketing" speak, like on its front github page, would do very well to remove a lot of the self-congratulatory tone, frankly. A lot of it reads like someone very impressed with themselves rather than text about how to use an actual tool.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

Re: Re-Frame: Build web apps in ClojureScript and React

#19

Post by synthc »

MikeOfAu wrote: post #6
synthc wrote: post #3

I really dislike the documentation of re-frame. The concepts are quite simple, but the docs explain them in a really confusing and buzzword heavy way.

Hmm. In my experience, this an unusual opinion (to me, the author). Over the years the re-frame documentation has been the most praised part of the project. Could you point out the area which you found unnecessarily difficult, and I'll happily review it. Could you also include your background, so I know where you are coming from? The docs are a little oriented towards JS developers coming across, but perhaps you are…

This part: https://day8.github.io/re-frame/a-loop/#the-data-loop The analogy with the water cycle is not helpful at all to me.

My background: I have several years of Clojure(script) experience, and used various other cljs frameworks before trying re-frame, so my view is probably biased.

Re: Re-Frame: Build web apps in ClojureScript and React

#20

Post by MikeOfAu »

synthc wrote: post #19
MikeOfAu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. In my experience, this an unusual opinion (to me, the author). Over the years the re-frame documentation has been the most praised part of the project. Could you point out the area which you found unnecessarily difficult, and I'll happily review it. Could you also include your background, so I know where you are coming from? The docs are a little oriented towards JS developers coming across, but perhaps you are…

This part: https://day8.github.io/re-frame/a-loop/#the-data-loop The analogy with the water cycle is not helpful at all to me. My background: I have several years of Clojure(script) experience, and used various other cljs frameworks before trying re-frame, so my view is probably biased.

And yet I've also had people tell me the opposite - they say they liked the water cycle analogy, even more than the subsequent dominoes narrative. Hmm. Hard to know what to do about such conflicting feedback.
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