searchkit VS reagent

https://github.com/searchkit/searchkit is an instantsearch adapter for elasticsearch / opensearch

One example of this pattern is Searchkit [0] which performs most of its logic inside a singleton Searchkit class which is instantiated and passed as a prop to the root React component. A bonus is that it's easier to implement bindings for Angular, Svelte, etc. since they can rely mostly on the class. For example, it looks like Searchkit now suggests using InstantSearch (react-instantsearch-dom) [1] from Algolia, i.e. an entirely different maintainer, and it creates the bindings with a `Client(new SearchKit(...))` adapter [2] around the class (see the code on the home page at [0]).

[0] https://www.searchkit.co/

[1] https://github.com/algolia/instantsearch

[2] https://github.com/searchkit/searchkit/blob/main/packages/se...

We will use React, Next.JS, Instantsearch and Searchkit to build a search UI.

I think you are probably spending too much of your time on software and too little time on marketing.

When I look at an open-source project, I ask myself three things:

1) What does it do exactly?

2) Is this easy to get started with?

3) Does it have any documentation?

For example, I have a use case for wanting to use graphql to communicate with elasticsearch. I google "graphql + elasticsearch" and somewhere a link to https://www.searchkit.co/ comes up. I look at it and I find my answers within 60 seconds:

1) Top of the page I see "Searchkit is an open source library which helps you build a great search experience with Elasticsearch. Powered by Apollo GraphQL." This makes me think that yeah, it's probably looking to solve a similar problem to me. In case I had any doubts, there's a demo.

2) Yes, easy to get started. There's a big "get started" button at the top of the page. And a get-started-video link at the bottom of the homepage.

3) At a glance, yes, it has decent documentation.

Given that I quickly got answers to these 3 questions, yes, I might consider using this project, or at least trying it out.

When I go to your page, I see:

1) River DB is a Rust connection pool and middleware proxy... ok... why do i need that? What problem is this solving? There's a long paragraph I can read after that, but when i'm browsing the web i don't usually read long paragraphs, so you've lost me already.

2) I have no idea how to get started

3) Doesn't look like there's any docs

Given the above, why would I use your software?

Note that the above has nothing to do with your software quality. But people only care about your code if things are breaking. Marketing material is what gets them in the door. For example, I use React all the time. I have NO IDEA if the underlying code is any good. And I don't really care. What I care about is that it's easy to use.

Anyway, long story short... if you want to build a software business, coding is maybe 30-40% of the job. Marketing, sales, documentation and all that jazz is probably the majority of the work. If you don't want to do that and you just want to code, then great, get a job. People will pay you good money for that.

Generating `HTML` from lisps has poisoned any other approach for me, see for example https://www.neilvandyke.org/racket/html-writing/, https://reagent-project.github.io/, and https://edicl.github.io/cl-who/

Hiccup syntax for Clojure uses hash maps (curly braces) for attrs, e.g. `{:style {:background "red" :margin "1em"}`

See Reagent which uses Hiccup synta: https://reagent-project.github.io/

    (defn simple-component []

* Single-Page App: shadow-cljs for the build concerns (https://github.com/thheller/shadow-cljs), Reagent with Re-frame for complex/large app (https://reagent-project.github.io and https://github.com/day8/re-frame). Even if we now prefer using HTMX (https://htmx.org) and server-side rendering (Hiccup way of manipulating HTML is just amazing, https://github.com/weavejester/hiccup).

The API documentation lists the most commonly and rarely used parts before going into detail and there are many usage examples.

Reagent has a nice intro tutorial (classic todo-app): http://reagent-project.github.io and many other helpful tutorials and resources for beginners: https://cljdoc.org/d/reagent/reagent/1.2.0/doc/documentation...

However, since Reagent is still stuck with class-components for more complex behavior and relies on Hiccup, which is nice but has a performance cost compared to pure React, I am unsure about its future. Like some others in the Clojure community, I have moved to thin React wrappers like Helix and use Refx to integrate those with re-frame. It may be a bit confusing right now for beginners since there is no “golden path”.

Also, unfortunately, many smaller libraries are poorly documented and it seems like it is expected from the developer to dig into the source code to find out what’s going on.

What I found the most difficult as a beginner was how to setup a project in ClojureScript in the first place, like all the configuration in shadow-cljs, how it interacts with deps.edn, how it integrates with npm, the REPL, etc. But dev/build config has always been a weak spot for me, so it might be just that.

Overall, I still very much enjoy working with Clojure(Script), more than in any other language. Anyone who likes Lisps and functional programming should give it a try (and be sure to watch Rich Hickeys amazing talks!).

have you tried cljs and reagent? it’s a different vibe.

my bootstrap: https://github.com/nathants/aws-gocljs

the project: https://reagent-project.github.io/

Clojure people have been doing this for a decade or so. It’s really so much better to work with. All started with Hiccup and when React came along you got Reagent and many more developments building on the idea.