from Hacker News

Hologram: A full-stack isomorphic Elixir web framework

by kimi on 1/15/25, 1:02 PM with 37 comments

  • by localghost3000 on 1/19/25, 4:16 AM

    If the website is made in this framework I have low hopes for it. Animations are jank. Clicking on links and buttons takes two or three tries before it does the thing. I’m on mobile safari. Maybe just me?

  • by isodev on 1/19/25, 10:30 AM

    About the framework homepage: The first rule of Fight Club is: you don't mess with the scroll. No amount of JavaScript can recreate what my preferred OS and input device give me out of the box.

    That aside, I love the idea. We can certainly use more tools like this in the Elixir ecosystem. I sometimes feel Phoenix has become the hammer we sort of use on everything, but maybe there are better ways (e.g. for more content focused websites).

  • by mcintyre1994 on 1/19/25, 7:19 AM

    I’m getting a weird issue with scrolling on this page: https://hologram.page/docs/quick-start (iOS safari)

    I seem to only be able to scroll once, then it freezes. Tapping the URL bar kinda resets it and lets me scroll again, but then it freezes again.

    It looks like a static page so I’m not sure what would be causing that, but a total guess would be re-renders on the code blocks? Not sure if that makes sense though!

  • by bartblast on 1/20/25, 7:31 PM

    Hi everyone! I'm Bart, the creator of Hologram. First, I'd like to thank whoever shared Hologram on HackerNews. I appreciate the interest and discussion it generated :)

    I want to address some of the concerns raised in the comments:

    Hologram is currently in early alpha stage. I released this version primarily to let developers experience Hologram's programming model and architecture.

    The mobile navigation issues that several users reported were caused by a bug in Hologram's DOM patching mechanism (which is responsible for updating the page content during navigation) - this has since been fixed. However, you may still experience some lag on mobile devices. This is due to an early, temporary bitstring implementation that is very inefficient and causes performance issues with large templates (which are essentially huge strings). This is one of the areas that I'll be working on improving soon.

    Some comments correctly pointed out that documentation is incomplete. You're absolutely right - I'm currently focusing heavily on improving the documentation. A more detailed explanation of what Hologram is and what to expect can be found in the announcement post on ElixirForum: https://elixirforum.com/t/hologram-an-isomorphic-elixir-web-...

    Despite the issues with navigation and missing documentation that were highlighted in the discussion, many visitors still chose to star the project. Thank you very much for your support!

    I'm committed to improving Hologram and addressing the concerns raised. The current version is just the beginning, and I appreciate both the criticism and encouragement from the community :)

  • by trescenzi on 1/19/25, 3:12 AM

    This looks really cool. Will have to play with it. Definitively reminds me of Lustre as well. Which if you like Elm you’ll like.

    https://github.com/lustre-labs/lustre

  • by cultofmetatron on 1/19/25, 1:38 PM

    I can't really see what this brings to the table that phoenix doesn't. Seems more minimal?

  • by Muromec on 1/19/25, 9:46 AM

    Nice, I saw the post on elixir forums the other week. Do you compile elixir straight to js or do you deal with beam as intermediate? I was doing a thing that compiled beam into wasm and it was working great without having to dive into the whole syntax.

  • by openrisk on 1/19/25, 9:46 AM

    Its impossible to read on firefox/android but would be interesting to learn more about how they organize the division of labor between server and client. As in: the principles, not necessarily the implementation.

  • by vijaybritto on 1/19/25, 11:11 AM

    I really like the idea and it aligns with my thinking. Its missing some basic docs though

  • by pkkkzip on 1/19/25, 6:34 AM

    this is the most underwhelming launch of a web framework. doc pages say "coming soon". no explanation or differentiator on the landing page forced to click "getting started"

    worst of all its just another JSX wrapper and some routing calls with states in some language you won't be able to easily hire/replace people.

    many lessons to be learned from this poor execution on top of the framework fatigue