undefined | Better HN

0 pointscultofmetatron3y ago0 comments

elixir/phoenix is the best platform for knocking out an MVP today. Its batteries included and has a frontend system called liveview that lets you write most of your frontend using elixir too. You get built in pubsub and websockets which are important for any new kind of software product. Users demand more interactivity and phoenix lets you do it and scale from day 1. Ecto is easily the best sql database library I've ever worked with. Its comparable to linq only it is uses elixir macros so its just a library.

1. you get a lot of out of the box rails like glue jsut like rails or django but the runtime perf is way faster. you can get away without even using caching in prod for awhile

2. supabase is written in elixir

3. lambda could functiosn have their place but loc you in to a cloud provider. I can move my elixir mvps accross providers with no issue and I won't get any surprise bills.

0 comments

5 comments · 2 top-level

linuxftw3y ago· 3 in thread

Holy smokes! I had no idea this project existed, and it just solves so many issues out of the box.

I'm a backend/infra developer, and I had been dreading having to learn a new front end framework because the work flows just look hideous. This looks like I can sidestep most of that problem entirely.

cultofmetatronOP3y ago

phoenix has been the inspiration for a lot of stuff comming out of the other frameworks.

phoneix channels -> django channels and actvecable but phoenix's version is much more powerful

liveview -> livewire, hotwire. both are copies of liveview but neither of them are as powerful since only liveview can spinup a persistent thread PER user allowing active stateful sessions that can push and recieve events from the client.

omnimus3y ago

Not claiming LiveView is not most powerful (probably is because erlang is most suited to this). But saying that Livewire or Hotwire are copies is not fair at all. I am not sure why they are named in so similar way but they are all green field projects.

Livewire has started at pretty much same time as LiveView and AFAIK both projects influenced each other over the years. Both authors are in contact and the frameworks are quite a bit different because Livewire (in PHP) does everything over http so it has to employ different tactics than LiveView that can run over websockets.

Hotwire on the other hand is from Basecamp who have been using this approach forever. They just packaged their experience into a framework they released. Theoretically hotwire is the oldest of the three.

I am saying this because i don't think you need to use LiveView. All of them are super productive and are used for many real projects. They are just a bit different and better at different things.

ch4s33y ago

Phoenix is super pleasant to work with, very few surprises.

tluyben23y ago

I love elixir/phoenix and wish I could use them in prod for my job, but...

> pubsub and websockets which are important for any new kind of software product

... not really. By far most people (probably by a huge margin) are doing fine building 1000s of new products per week without either those things.

Further I think you are right.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse