uix VS imba

Check out uix too: https://github.com/pitch-io/uix

…it’s a reagent alternative for modern react.

> But Reagent supports functional components as well, with hooks and all.

I addressed this already: while reagent is able to emit function components, there is a performance penalty to this.[1]

> I also very much like Hiccup, and so do many of us, because code is data and data is code, and Helix has decided not to support that.

Hiccup is convenient to write, but it is a constant run-time cost and a significant storage cost given that you have to store long series of constructors to cljs.core.PersistentVector in your bundle, have the JS runtime actually construct the vector, then pass it through a Hiccup interpreter to finally produce DOM nodes and throw away the persistent vector, only to repeat this entire process again on re-render.[2]

> Helix has decided not to support that.

That is simply not true. From the Helix documentation[2],

> If you want to use libraries like sablono, hicada or even hx hiccup parser, you can easily add that by creating a custom macro.

These are all Hiccup interpreters you can readily use.

IME there is very little difference between using the $ macro in Helix and writing Hiccup. I do not really miss Hiccup when I use Helix, and you still have data as code ;)

While this is from an unrelated project, there are benchmarks[3] done against Reagent that demonstrate the sheer overhead it has. In practice it is not a big problem if you rarely trigger a re-render, but otherwise it is a non-trivial cost, and if you want to use modern React features (like Suspense), there is a lot of r/as-element mingling going on, converting cases, etc. that simply make Reagent feel more tedious to use than Helix.

Also, the newer UIx2, which largely borrows from Helix, is "3.2x faster than Reagent" according to one of the contributors.[4]

I think it'd be worthwhile to benchmark all of these libraries against each other and record the data in one place. Maybe I'll get around to doing it this weekend :)

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[1] https://github.com/reagent-project/reagent/blob/master/doc/R...

[2] https://github.com/lilactown/helix/blob/master/docs/faq.md#w...

[3] https://github.com/roman01la/uix#benchmarks

[4] https://github.com/pitch-io/uix/pull/12

If your heart’s set on following React latest closely though, UIx2 seems like a great library, and has a migration path from reagent: https://github.com/pitch-io/uix/blob/master/docs/interop-with-reagent.md

It's been a while since I posted updates on UIx, but here it is, v0.8.1 with API compatibility for React v18.2.0 https://github.com/pitch-io/uix/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

I suppose one of the best usecases of code sharing is to do Hydrating Server-Side-Rendered web apps just like Next.js. Not too many other languages are capable of doing this outside of Node and Clojure. For this reason it's kind of surprising that it's not more common in Clojure, seems like most people are just building old fashioned SPA's in Reagent/Reframe rather than competing with Next, but pitch's UIX library does seem to support it https://github.com/pitch-io/uix

When I was looking into ClojureScript I was kind of concerned at the complexity of writing applications in ReFrame which seems to be what most of the community seems to be using. I've developed apps in this kind of event-emitting/event handler style before in JavaScript and found it quickly got quite out of hand. For my next app I will want to go with something like React-Query that in a sort of declarative way handles all your data fetching for you, and lets you decouple your components from the getting ahold of the data they depend on. I also searched far and wide for some kind of framework/library that supports SSR+CSR like Next.js but I don't think there's anything ready yet except maybe https://github.com/pitch-io/uix.

Might want to check out Uix2 by pitch.io here https://github.com/pitch-io/uix/blob/master/docs/server-side-rendering.md Also there's https://inertiajs.com/ which is pretty interesting and has a 3rd party adapter for clojure https://inertiajs.com/community-adapters

I was starting greenfield I would consider looking further afield, maybe to UIx²

Imba. The best web programming language ever made.

https://imba.io/

I agree. I was looking for the same thing.

They’re not easy to create but side by side code/result demos like the ones I saw on https://imba.io/ make it very clear on what I’ll be getting into as a developer.

You might get away with Svelte (not Sveltekit) here since it compiles down to javascript. Another fun framework to try out for this might be https://imba.io/, which also has an option to compile things down to pure HTML, CSS & JS (plus it’s very fun to work with).

I've been using Svelte exclusively for the past 3 years or so. I love it and will keep using it as my main solution for interactivity. It's fast to use and execute, produces small apps, and it's extremely economical in how you express components.

The confusion the author expresses with $: reactive statements and store auto subscription with the $ are unwarranted IMO. It's really just a lack of familiarity but this kind of stuff becomes intuitive very quickly.

My criticism of Svelte is rather that they haven't gone deep enough into the compiler-based approach.

Would be great if there were something like .svelteStore files where you had all the automatic reactivity tracking without having to use a component. Or some kind of improvements into writing styles. With a compiler you can do anything you want and I think Svelte has been a bit timid, maybe to not scare people away.

For example Imba[1] also bet on a compiler-based approach (years before Svelte existed) and created their own language/framework/compiler. They have come up with amazing solutions to many problems. It's a shame they bet on Ruby aesthetics though and also that they aren't investing into marketing/docs.

Of course, one might argue that using a compiler is a bad idea for a number of reasons. And yeah of course there are objective issues to any approach, but you have to pick your poison. All in all, Svelte has made me tremendously productive compared to using other solutions for years (React, Vue, Mithril, Inferno, etc).

I will say though that I would rather use a solution that doesn't have any reactivity at all. Mithril and Imba have this concept of just "redrawing the whole thing" like a game GUI without having to worry about reactivity. Cognitively speaking, no reactivity is the best mental model IMO. With any reactive solution, it's very easy to fall into complex reactive dependencies which can be hard to track. The author of Imba has a video from 2018 where he talks about this[2].

[1] https://imba.io/

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwoApTLvRdQ

A code snippet showing a simple program right on the home page and "selling" whatever features makes it special would go a long way. It's quite off-putting to have to delve deep into a guide in order to get a feel for a language.

Some examples done right:

https://lfe.io

https://elixir-lang.org

https://imba.io

https://ocaml.org

At the same time, my heart is kind of in the web stuff and I find it a lot more exciting personally so it's hard for me to leave. You can do so much more with web tech and all the new ideas Tcoming from it and the pace it's developing is really . I just don't understand why React is becoming the standard when it's a complete nightmare compared to where we should be. I mean, this is literally insane, especially when things like Svelte exist - or even better, Imba. The day Imba becomes the standard is the day I love web dev again.