4 ms·

Aramid: Create Strongly-Typed HTML Components in C#

28 points by douche 10y ago

haimez 10y ago
I like the idea, but I think this kind of thing feels obtuse in languages like C# and Java where the "templates" are 100% written with the hosted language. Some languages can work around this by having flexible type definitions and syntax to make the DSL much closer to the target template (for an example, see: http://www.lihaoyi.com/scalatags/ http://www.lihaoyi.com/scalatags/). This works pretty well to avoid all those field declaration and "new" keywords.
- wtetzner 10y ago
  > I like the idea, but I think this kind of thing feels obtuse in languages like C# and Java where the "templates" are 100% written with the hosted language. I agree, but it's not that bad. I do think j2html [1] has a cleaner look than Aramid. [1] http://j2html.com/ http://j2html.com/
ZenoArrow 10y ago
WebSharper templates are worth considering as an alternative: https://github.com/intellifactory/websharper.ui.next/blob/master/docs/Templates.md https://github.com/intellifactory/websharper.ui.next/blob/ma... https://kimsereyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/create-html-componants-for-your.html https://kimsereyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/create-html-comp...
throwaway98237 10y ago
I feel the name should be "Kevlar" to reflect use of trademarks by Microsoft and DuPont. Perhaps if the language used was C++ then Aramid might be appropriate.
SBArbeit 10y ago
In .NET Core, there are new TagHelpers that probably do some of the same stuff... not sure exactly of the overlap, but I've used them and they're really nice.
- simooooo 10y ago
  I'd much rather use razor than write all my markup in c#. This code looks way too bloated
- zihotki 10y ago
  Agree, I can't even think of an use case which can not be implemented using TagHelpers, partials & co in newer version of Razor.
isuckatcoding 10y ago
Is this only for server side rendering?
jeremy_wiebe 10y ago
Looks a lot like the HtmlTags project that grew out of FubuMvc. https://github.com/HtmlTags/htmltags https://github.com/HtmlTags/htmltags
partycoder 10y ago
Why not F#?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- junkyarddog 10y ago
  Using F# would have been a great choice. By using algebraic data types plus active patterns the size of the code base would have been dramatically reduced and much more comprehensible. And of course it would have been even more type safe.
3dGrabber 10y ago
While the tags are strongly typed, their attributes are apparently not (anonymous types). Why?
hyperlinq 10y ago
You may want to check out Hyperlinq, a C# library for statically typed HTML generation. It also statically types the HTML attributes. Example code: H.head ( H.title ("Hello world"), H.link (a => a.href ("/favicon.ico").rel ("shortcut icon").type ("image/x-icon")) ) Having used it on a website that I've had to maintain for years I can say that the simplicity of writing reusable components and ease of refactoring is really nice. It entirely negates the need to use a view mechanism at all - you just write your views in C# code. The links for github and nuget are: https://github.com/hyperlinq/hyperlinq https://github.com/hyperlinq/hyperlinq https://www.nuget.org/packages/Hyperlinq https://www.nuget.org/packages/Hyperlinq I should mention that I use Hyperlinq in conjunction with MarkdownDeep. Markdown is great for defining HTML fragments that are very document-oriented, as opposed to data-oriented. So for instance I'd use markdown to define an FAQ, but would use Hyperlinq to define HTML for a customer record. Markdown fragments can be inserted into a Hyperlinq DOM as literal nodes (the underlying mechanism for Hyperlinq is Linq to XML), so the two approaches mesh together nicely. I wrote the library ages ago but put very little effort into promoting it as I'm too busy.

28 points by douche 10y ago

I like the idea, but I think this kind of thing feels obtuse in languages like C# and Java where the "templates" are 100% written with the hosted language. Some languages can work around this by having flexible type definitions and syntax to make the DSL much closer to the target template (for an example, see: http://www.lihaoyi.com/scalatags/ http://www.lihaoyi.com/scalatags/). This works pretty well to avoid all those field declaration and "new" keywords.

wtetzner 10y ago
> I like the idea, but I think this kind of thing feels obtuse in languages like C# and Java where the "templates" are 100% written with the hosted language. I agree, but it's not that bad. I do think j2html [1] has a cleaner look than Aramid. [1] http://j2html.com/ http://j2html.com/

ZenoArrow 10y ago

WebSharper templates are worth considering as an alternative: https://github.com/intellifactory/websharper.ui.next/blob/master/docs/Templates.md https://github.com/intellifactory/websharper.ui.next/blob/ma... https://kimsereyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/create-html-componants-for-your.html https://kimsereyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/create-html-comp...

throwaway98237 10y ago

I feel the name should be "Kevlar" to reflect use of trademarks by Microsoft and DuPont. Perhaps if the language used was C++ then Aramid might be appropriate.

SBArbeit 10y ago

In .NET Core, there are new TagHelpers that probably do some of the same stuff... not sure exactly of the overlap, but I've used them and they're really nice.

simooooo 10y ago
I'd much rather use razor than write all my markup in c#. This code looks way too bloated
zihotki 10y ago
Agree, I can't even think of an use case which can not be implemented using TagHelpers, partials & co in newer version of Razor.

isuckatcoding 10y ago

Is this only for server side rendering?

jeremy_wiebe 10y ago

Looks a lot like the HtmlTags project that grew out of FubuMvc. https://github.com/HtmlTags/htmltags https://github.com/HtmlTags/htmltags

partycoder 10y ago

Why not F#?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
junkyarddog 10y ago
Using F# would have been a great choice. By using algebraic data types plus active patterns the size of the code base would have been dramatically reduced and much more comprehensible. And of course it would have been even more type safe.

3dGrabber 10y ago

While the tags are strongly typed, their attributes are apparently not (anonymous types). Why?

hyperlinq 10y ago

You may want to check out Hyperlinq, a C# library for statically typed HTML generation. It also statically types the HTML attributes. Example code: H.head ( H.title ("Hello world"), H.link (a => a.href ("/favicon.ico").rel ("shortcut icon").type ("image/x-icon")) ) Having used it on a website that I've had to maintain for years I can say that the simplicity of writing reusable components and ease of refactoring is really nice. It entirely negates the need to use a view mechanism at all - you just write your views in C# code. The links for github and nuget are: https://github.com/hyperlinq/hyperlinq https://github.com/hyperlinq/hyperlinq https://www.nuget.org/packages/Hyperlinq https://www.nuget.org/packages/Hyperlinq I should mention that I use Hyperlinq in conjunction with MarkdownDeep. Markdown is great for defining HTML fragments that are very document-oriented, as opposed to data-oriented. So for instance I'd use markdown to define an FAQ, but would use Hyperlinq to define HTML for a customer record. Markdown fragments can be inserted into a Hyperlinq DOM as literal nodes (the underlying mechanism for Hyperlinq is Linq to XML), so the two approaches mesh together nicely. I wrote the library ages ago but put very little effort into promoting it as I'm too busy.