com.hyperfiddle/electric {:mvn/version "v3-alpha-SNAPSHOT"} · 2024 Dec 11
Note
Electric v3 is now in private beta! Request beta access here: https://www.hyperfiddle.net/early-access.html
Electric is a new way to build rich, interactive web products that simply have too much interactivity, realtime streaming, and too rich network connections to be able to write all the frontend/backend network plumbing by hand. With Electric, you can compose your client and server expressions directly (i.e. in the same function), and the Electric compiler macros will infer at compile time the implied frontend/backend boundary and generate the corresponding full-stack app.
Figure: In Electric, client and server expressions compose directly, and the Electric compiler transparently solves the network boundary through a straightforward dataflow graph analysis.
How it works: Unlike request/response frameworks, frontend ORMs, and client-side databases that suffer from request waterfalls, over/under fetching, large payload deserialization and other performance issues that get worse as your codebase and database grows, Electric uses a custom Clojure/Script compiler to perform deep graph analysis of your unified frontend/backend program and automatically determine the implied network cut, and then compile your program into separate reactive client and server target programs that cooperate and anticipate each other's needs. See UIs are streaming DAGs (Getz 2022) for a quick 10 minute video explainer of how this works and why it actually doesn't result in the request waterfalls you might expect, even in the presence of deep nesting, loops and control flow.
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Fully reactive: unlike javascript frameworks, in Electric, reactivity is built directly into the programming language itself. Reactive-if, reactive-for, reactive lambda. When everything is reactive, it feels like nothing is reactive. No observables! No async types! De-load your mind and relax.
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Multi-tier: frontend and backend are defined in the same expression, same function, same file. It's not code sharing, it's code splitting. Let the compiler infer the boundary from your code, instead of contorting your code — nay, your entire architecture — to fit the boundary.
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Network-transparent: Electric closures close over server and client scope bindings, all in the same expression. The Electric compiler uses compile-time static knowledge of your source code to slice your expressions into client and server portions. Right through closures, loops and deeply nested function calls.
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Strong composition: Network-transparent Electric functions are true functions. You have lambda, recursion, HOFs, closures, dynamic scope, macros, etc: the full undamaged composition power of Lisp. Goodbye "functional core imperative shell"; with Electric the entire system is a function.
Our mission is to raise the abstraction ceiling in web development in the same way that managed memory did in the 90s, paving the way for something new.
- v3 live tutorial: https://electric.hyperfiddle.net/
- v3 starter app: not yet generally available, request early access here
- Talk: Electric Clojure v3: Differential Dataflow for UI (Getz 2024)
- Talk: Electric Clojure: compiler managed datasync for rich web apps (Getz 2023)
- Talk: UIs are streaming DAGs (Getz 2022)
- Talk: Missionary: a functional approach to massively concurrent application design (Noel 2023)
- You don't need a web framework, you need a web language (Getz 2021)
- Talk: Functional effects and streaming systems in Clojure (Noel 2021)
- https://clojureverse.org/t/electric-clojure-a-signals-dsl-for-fullstack-web-ui/9788
- https://clojureverse.org/t/signals-vs-streams/9840/1
- slack support chatroom: #hyperfiddle @ clojurians.net
- follow https://twitter.com/dustingetz for progress updates
- Contributing: we do not currently accept PRs against Electric itself as this has historically not been productive for us. However, we'd love for you to contribute demos! Many of our coolest demos were started by early users, this is an amazing and productive way for you to get involved and collaborate with us. This will require a signed contributors agreement (like Clojure), DM dustingetz on slack.
Electric v3 is free for bootstrappers and non-commercial use, but is otherwise a commercial project, which helps us continue to invest and maintain payroll for a team of 4. See license change announcement.
