mobx-jsx VS Immer

Tangentially, Solid is fascinating - especially the dom-expressions backend meaning you can basically bolt compilation behaviour into anything that supports that.

I have https://github.com/ryansolid/mobx-jsx/?tab=readme-ov-file#mo... on my list to try since I -really- like mobx for stage management (especially mobx-keystone) and am fascinated by how clean the results can be.

Though for 'real' code I still tend to default to react + mobx-keystone because for all my gripes with react it's a pretty solid Schelling Point.

Sure, you can use JSX without a framework! Be it MobX JSX, dom-chef or jsx-dom, it should feel right at home.

mobx-jsx is using MobX as the reactivity system together with Solid's DOM renderer.

I've just skimmed the article but I'm definitely going to give it a proper read.

We've built an architecture somewhat like this where we're using MobX objects in the frontend (a graph of the db objects effectively) that's patched by subscriptions to tables via hasura. So we effectively have all the data on hand locally all the time and use the reactivity on top of that.

We actually played around with sqlite in wasm because I really really miss having a real relational db in the frontend. We decided that there was just a few too many unknowns to proceed further with the idea. Initially we were using indexdb as a frontend cache but dropped that since without adding more layers to it it doesn't provide much value.

(Also played around with using Solid's direct mobx -> jsx library without having react inbetween https://github.com/ryansolid/mobx-jsx but, again, too much unproven tech to build on).

The work you're doing here is super exciting. The developer experience of what we currently have is pretty nice and I can definitely see your model working out well in the future.

I've been keeping an eye on your work for a long time now. We're a mobx shop so I was hoping to see you explore the ideas you had around that a little more (https://github.com/ryansolid/mobx-jsx).

I like and know where I'm at with React, but bringing a beginner through it recently definitely made me re-appreciate how nuanced it is. Also, you have to do a bit of voodoo to get good performance, and when you do the intention of the code vanishes pretty quickly.

For someone using React on top and mobx stores in the background (50k LOC), how big of a task would you say it is to move to something like Solid?

Immer is a lightweight package that simplifies working with immutable states. Immutable data structures ensure efficient data change detection, making it easier to track modifications. Additionally, they enable cost-effective cloning by sharing unchanged parts of a data tree in memory.

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It looks like it’s mutating, but both the reducers and update() uses immer* under the hood, so we still respect immutability under the hood.

Cami supports redux devtools so you can use that for time-travel debugging too!

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* https://github.com/immerjs/immer

I heard that immutability libraries like immer.js [0] help with this. Anyone go this way and had good success? Is this 'the way'?

[0]: https://immerjs.github.io/immer/

So, that's what we built, and we built it in the most obvious way — using JavaScript Proxy objects to track mutations and reflect those changes across Appsmith’s framework. Initially things looked good — it worked, aside from a few hacks to make some data types work with map and set, and we were following the example of other projects that had similar requirements. If it was good enough for them, it should be good enough for us, right?

But is immer really the ultimate answer? The performance problem of immer is more prominent in large arrays and deep-level object scenarios. See this issue description, many authors in the community began to try to make breakthroughs, and noticed that structura and mutative, I found that it is indeed many times faster than immer as they said, but it still fails to solve the problem of both fast speed and good development experience. I will analyze the two issues in detail below.

I like immer for this kind of thing: https://github.com/immerjs/immer

It gives you immutable updates without getting bogged down in FP abstractions.

I've always been a huge fan of immer for these case. For your code, it would simply turn into setGridData((prev) => produce(prev, draft => applyChanges(changes, draft)) but I recommend you go over their documentation to fully understand how it works

If you're trying to make things actually immutable, Object.freeze and deep copies can clutter things up pretty good, have you considered using something like immer? (https://immerjs.github.io/immer/)