5 ms·

Show HN: Mosaic – A declarative, front-end JavaScript library for building UIs

63 points by authman2 8y ago

tobr 8y ago
Looks fairly interesting. Two questions the documentation ought to answer: 1. How mature is it? My assumption is that it’s not mature, in which case it’s more credible if the README says so. 2. What would be the reason to use this instead of, say, lit-html or Preact or Mithril.js?
misterdata 8y ago
This looks a lot like Vue.js - how is it different/better?
akho 8y ago
So you made a web thing and called it Mosaic.
- foobarbecue 8y ago
  (8) sidestep to little bits of history repeating (8)
- arethuza 8y ago
  It would be amusing to write a basic web browser in JavaScript and call it Mosaic...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- openbasic 8y ago
  I don't think the new generation knows what Mosaic was.
purrcat259 8y ago
Not sure if I am alone in this, but I tend to skip straight to demos after skimming the first few lines. I guess it serves as a basic indicator that the code actually works. Would love to see some demos of this library.
- bestest 8y ago
  Many examples of the library-in-action may be found on the homepage: https://mosaicjs.netlify.com https://mosaicjs.netlify.com edit: update link
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    Your link seems to be broken.
    - BerislavLopac 8y ago
      Interestingly, it works from the home page; I didn't bother checking, but I assume there is some JS handling going on.
  - dmethvin 8y ago
    I wasn't able to find any working examples from the homepage, even with the updated link. Can you link directly to a demo page or two that uses the library, rather than a Github repo with code that uses the library?
    - bestest 8y ago
      Looks like they could improve their examples section. These are links to jsfiddle from their documentation with some examples: https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/kdfzL2m5/39/embedded/js,html,result/#Result https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/kdfzL2m5/39/embedded/js,html,r... https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/e8nuydLo/39/embedded/js,html,result/#Result https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/e8nuydLo/39/embedded/js,html,r... https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/yfhsxrcm/35/embedded/js,html,result/#Result https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/yfhsxrcm/35/embedded/js,html,r...
vladsanchez 8y ago
https://mosaicjs.netlify.com https://mosaicjs.netlify.com contains a lot of broken links. If you really want to promote your library, fix them! Otherwise ppl will focus on your broken windows instead of the value of your product. Thanks for sharing Mosaic.
darepublic 8y ago
reminded me a bit of angularjs, with its constant watching of state data
Zelphyr 8y ago
Can someone explain the trend of mixing HTML and JS code that has been increasing lately? We fought for years to get away from that so I'm curious to know what happened to make people think it was suddenly a good idea. I'm not suggesting it's not or that it is permanently bad. I'd simply like to know why it's good after being considered a bad practice for so long?
- prezjordan 8y ago
  When building certain applications, it turns out those concerns aren't really separate! It helps a lot to colocate the markup and the code that generates/modifies it.
- MentallyRetired 8y ago
  I fought hard for that as well among friends and colleagues. Here's my take on it: * I view vue/react/etc as a sort of polyfill for webcomponents. * I also look at JSX and Vue templating as just that -- programmatic templates that serve as a guideline for the HTML they create. That's what lets me sleep at night.
- dcre 8y ago
  Like the other commenter said, people realized that separate languages does not necessarily mean separate concerns. Once you start modifying HTML from JS enough, you start to realize the JS counts as view logic just like the template does. So the division of concerns changed from View (HTML template)/Controller (JS) to View (dynamic, written in JS)/Data (also likely JS). The thing is, people were effectively writing HTML in JS before too, it's just that it looked like `el.style.color = 'red'` instead of `<div style={{color: 'red'}}>`.
crabl 8y ago
This has some eerie similarities to [Backbone.js](https://backbonejs.org/#View-extend https://backbonejs.org/#View-extend). That's not necessarily a bad thing, because Backbone was doing its level best to compete as a framework in its heyday, but it's still interesting to see how different it would be if Backbone was designed today.
spankalee 8y ago
The source looks like it has a lot of bits in it from lit-html. ️

63 points by authman2 8y ago

tobr 8y ago

Looks fairly interesting. Two questions the documentation ought to answer: 1. How mature is it? My assumption is that it’s not mature, in which case it’s more credible if the README says so. 2. What would be the reason to use this instead of, say, lit-html or Preact or Mithril.js?

misterdata 8y ago

This looks a lot like Vue.js - how is it different/better?

akho 8y ago

So you made a web thing and called it Mosaic.

foobarbecue 8y ago
(8) sidestep to little bits of history repeating (8)
arethuza 8y ago
It would be amusing to write a basic web browser in JavaScript and call it Mosaic...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
openbasic 8y ago
I don't think the new generation knows what Mosaic was.

purrcat259 8y ago

Not sure if I am alone in this, but I tend to skip straight to demos after skimming the first few lines. I guess it serves as a basic indicator that the code actually works. Would love to see some demos of this library.

bestest 8y ago
Many examples of the library-in-action may be found on the homepage: https://mosaicjs.netlify.com https://mosaicjs.netlify.com edit: update link
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Your link seems to be broken.
  - BerislavLopac 8y ago
    Interestingly, it works from the home page; I didn't bother checking, but I assume there is some JS handling going on.
- dmethvin 8y ago
  I wasn't able to find any working examples from the homepage, even with the updated link. Can you link directly to a demo page or two that uses the library, rather than a Github repo with code that uses the library?
  - bestest 8y ago
    Looks like they could improve their examples section. These are links to jsfiddle from their documentation with some examples: https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/kdfzL2m5/39/embedded/js,html,result/#Result https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/kdfzL2m5/39/embedded/js,html,r... https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/e8nuydLo/39/embedded/js,html,result/#Result https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/e8nuydLo/39/embedded/js,html,r... https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/yfhsxrcm/35/embedded/js,html,result/#Result https://jsfiddle.net/authman2/yfhsxrcm/35/embedded/js,html,r...

vladsanchez 8y ago

https://mosaicjs.netlify.com https://mosaicjs.netlify.com contains a lot of broken links. If you really want to promote your library, fix them! Otherwise ppl will focus on your broken windows instead of the value of your product. Thanks for sharing Mosaic.

darepublic 8y ago

reminded me a bit of angularjs, with its constant watching of state data

Zelphyr 8y ago

Can someone explain the trend of mixing HTML and JS code that has been increasing lately? We fought for years to get away from that so I'm curious to know what happened to make people think it was suddenly a good idea. I'm not suggesting it's not or that it is permanently bad. I'd simply like to know why it's good after being considered a bad practice for so long?

prezjordan 8y ago
When building certain applications, it turns out those concerns aren't really separate! It helps a lot to colocate the markup and the code that generates/modifies it.
MentallyRetired 8y ago
I fought hard for that as well among friends and colleagues. Here's my take on it: * I view vue/react/etc as a sort of polyfill for webcomponents. * I also look at JSX and Vue templating as just that -- programmatic templates that serve as a guideline for the HTML they create. That's what lets me sleep at night.
dcre 8y ago
Like the other commenter said, people realized that separate languages does not necessarily mean separate concerns. Once you start modifying HTML from JS enough, you start to realize the JS counts as view logic just like the template does. So the division of concerns changed from View (HTML template)/Controller (JS) to View (dynamic, written in JS)/Data (also likely JS). The thing is, people were effectively writing HTML in JS before too, it's just that it looked like `el.style.color = 'red'` instead of `<div style={{color: 'red'}}>`.

crabl 8y ago

This has some eerie similarities to [Backbone.js](https://backbonejs.org/#View-extend https://backbonejs.org/#View-extend). That's not necessarily a bad thing, because Backbone was doing its level best to compete as a framework in its heyday, but it's still interesting to see how different it would be if Backbone was designed today.

spankalee 8y ago

The source looks like it has a lot of bits in it from lit-html. ️