5 ms·

EmberConf 2017: State of the Union

132 points by chadhietala1 9y ago

mwpmaybe 9y ago
A great read that recaps the history of Ember, what helped it stand out from the crowd in the past, and what worked and what didn't, segueing into the introduction of Glimmer.js, a standalone UI component library extracted from Ember 2.10. Congrats to Tom, Yehuda, Godfrey, and the rest of the Ember Core Team! Looking forward to another productive year.
0xADADA 9y ago
I was playing with glimmer.js, it feels like you can now "NPM your way to a full app" similar to the react eco system (if you're into that sorta thing).
- Sancty 9y ago
  Our company's main application is built on top of ember 1.13. We've pushed off doing the upgrade and are leaning towards a move to react (all our mobile apps are done in RN). This might be a solution.
  - mwpmaybe 9y ago
    Upgrading from 1.13 to 2.x isn't terribly challenging. (1.12 to 1.13 was much worse.) What's holding you back?
    - Sancty 9y ago
      Just now seeing this. Honestly it's just a big project and everything else in our solution has moved on to react. Upgrading would be far less work for sure but it's still an investment.
lurker789 9y ago
I hope they start making TypeScript a first class citizen in Ember, just as they have done with Glimmer, it really makes development so much easier, hopefully with .get() and .set() going away it will make it easier for the typescript compiler to figure out what is mutating what.
- mixonic 9y ago
  There was a lightning talk on TypeScript at EmberConf that also gave a status update on how TS and Ember work together: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCHFjGSCqP4&feature=youtu.be&t=6h34m26s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCHFjGSCqP4&feature=youtu.be... It looks like full support could be landing soon. I know TS 2.2 added flexible enough class modeling to handle Ember's object system: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/typescript/2017/02/22/announcing-typescript-2-2/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/typescript/2017/02/22/annou... Of course we're attacking that from the other side as well, and experimenting with native ES classes in Glimmer.
  - lurker789 9y ago
    <3 mixonic, thanks for the reply, I was scouring the repo / blog for any word on typescript support, this looks promising.
tabeth 9y ago
GlimmerJS is going to be amazing. I can't wait to check it out soon.
orf 9y ago
Yes! Ember is a really awesome framework, when coming from the likes of Django where there is a blessed version of everything you need (like a router, file layout, template language etc) it's really nice for those to all be included. This post hits the nail on the head with Embers problems though, and it does seem like it's been left behind a bit in terms of using the latest and greatest tools. For example migration to Babel 6 from Babel 5 is only just finishing for the core components. get() and set() are also not so nice for newcomers. As the post highlights this is mostly due to the projects age and baggage Ember carries. I see this as a positive though, Ember is pretty damn mature and well thought out, even if it's lacking in some syntactical sugar (and sometimes the latest and greatest in JS libraries/tools is such a fast moving target that it's just not possible to track it). The future is looking bright for Ember! Well done!
jsnk 9y ago
Glimmer looks awesome! Is it easy switch out handlebars for some other templating language?
- mmun 9y ago
  The typical strategy is to design a language that compiles to Handlebars, e.g. http://emblemjs.com/ http://emblemjs.com/. It would be possible to support other languages more directly but they will tend to have a Handlebarsy flavor.
  - echelon 9y ago
    Write in a language that compiles to another language that itself compiles to markup... The web frontend world is crazy to a backend engineer. We have hard problems to solve too, but ours usually arise from well-understood problems, such as CAP theorem.
    - always_good 9y ago
      It's somewhat jarring when people use "we" as if they're in a faction and they're the spokesperson of that faction. It's almost as bad as using "you guys" when faced with a single commenter. Anyways, you can't think of a single analogue for the emblem->handlebars example?
      - echelon 9y ago
        It's because my colleagues generally consider the frontend landscape to be the Wild West. The only analog I can think of is statically typed SQL, which is in fact awesome.
    - daliwali 9y ago
      It's crazy, sometimes web frontend is an echo chamber and you will get burned to the stake if you suggest doing anything simpler like just writing markup instead of a template language that translates to markup or a language that translates to that language that translates to markup. But it keeps people employed.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ddoolin 9y ago
Props for the Eminem reference. I didn't see that coming AT ALL and I laughed for a good couple minutes.

132 points by chadhietala1 9y ago

A great read that recaps the history of Ember, what helped it stand out from the crowd in the past, and what worked and what didn't, segueing into the introduction of Glimmer.js, a standalone UI component library extracted from Ember 2.10. Congrats to Tom, Yehuda, Godfrey, and the rest of the Ember Core Team! Looking forward to another productive year.

0xADADA 9y ago

I was playing with glimmer.js, it feels like you can now "NPM your way to a full app" similar to the react eco system (if you're into that sorta thing).

Sancty 9y ago
Our company's main application is built on top of ember 1.13. We've pushed off doing the upgrade and are leaning towards a move to react (all our mobile apps are done in RN). This might be a solution.
- mwpmaybe 9y ago
  Upgrading from 1.13 to 2.x isn't terribly challenging. (1.12 to 1.13 was much worse.) What's holding you back?
  - Sancty 9y ago
    Just now seeing this. Honestly it's just a big project and everything else in our solution has moved on to react. Upgrading would be far less work for sure but it's still an investment.

lurker789 9y ago

I hope they start making TypeScript a first class citizen in Ember, just as they have done with Glimmer, it really makes development so much easier, hopefully with .get() and .set() going away it will make it easier for the typescript compiler to figure out what is mutating what.

mixonic 9y ago
There was a lightning talk on TypeScript at EmberConf that also gave a status update on how TS and Ember work together: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCHFjGSCqP4&feature=youtu.be&t=6h34m26s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCHFjGSCqP4&feature=youtu.be... It looks like full support could be landing soon. I know TS 2.2 added flexible enough class modeling to handle Ember's object system: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/typescript/2017/02/22/announcing-typescript-2-2/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/typescript/2017/02/22/annou... Of course we're attacking that from the other side as well, and experimenting with native ES classes in Glimmer.
- lurker789 9y ago
  <3 mixonic, thanks for the reply, I was scouring the repo / blog for any word on typescript support, this looks promising.

tabeth 9y ago

GlimmerJS is going to be amazing. I can't wait to check it out soon.

orf 9y ago

Yes! Ember is a really awesome framework, when coming from the likes of Django where there is a blessed version of everything you need (like a router, file layout, template language etc) it's really nice for those to all be included. This post hits the nail on the head with Embers problems though, and it does seem like it's been left behind a bit in terms of using the latest and greatest tools. For example migration to Babel 6 from Babel 5 is only just finishing for the core components. get() and set() are also not so nice for newcomers. As the post highlights this is mostly due to the projects age and baggage Ember carries. I see this as a positive though, Ember is pretty damn mature and well thought out, even if it's lacking in some syntactical sugar (and sometimes the latest and greatest in JS libraries/tools is such a fast moving target that it's just not possible to track it). The future is looking bright for Ember! Well done!

jsnk 9y ago

Glimmer looks awesome! Is it easy switch out handlebars for some other templating language?

mmun 9y ago
The typical strategy is to design a language that compiles to Handlebars, e.g. http://emblemjs.com/ http://emblemjs.com/. It would be possible to support other languages more directly but they will tend to have a Handlebarsy flavor.
- echelon 9y ago
  Write in a language that compiles to another language that itself compiles to markup... The web frontend world is crazy to a backend engineer. We have hard problems to solve too, but ours usually arise from well-understood problems, such as CAP theorem.
  - always_good 9y ago
    It's somewhat jarring when people use "we" as if they're in a faction and they're the spokesperson of that faction. It's almost as bad as using "you guys" when faced with a single commenter. Anyways, you can't think of a single analogue for the emblem->handlebars example?
    - echelon 9y ago
      It's because my colleagues generally consider the frontend landscape to be the Wild West. The only analog I can think of is statically typed SQL, which is in fact awesome.
  - daliwali 9y ago
    It's crazy, sometimes web frontend is an echo chamber and you will get burned to the stake if you suggest doing anything simpler like just writing markup instead of a template language that translates to markup or a language that translates to that language that translates to markup. But it keeps people employed.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

ddoolin 9y ago

Props for the Eminem reference. I didn't see that coming AT ALL and I laughed for a good couple minutes.