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?
I think the author might have a debug build enabled. If you open the console you can see timing information logged. Loading the introduction page of the docs [0] logs...
[Debug] Hologram: runtime script executed
[Debug] Hologram: page script executed
[Log] Hologram: page rendered in – 876 – "ms"
[Debug] Hologram: connected to a server
Which is kind of crazy for a page with just text. Would be super curious to see what the perf is like on a proper prod build, it looks like they've implemented at least some part of the elixir vm in js
Mobile Safari takes at least two taps for most links on any page. Eg try going to https://yawaramin.github.io/dream-html/dream-html/Dream_html... then tapping on the first link in the content area, 'Form'. It's just a simple <a> tag but takes at least two taps to make it load the page.
It seems like mobile Safari treats the first tap as 'selecting' the link, and the second one as actually navigating to it.
I had to tap at least five times on the burger menu... It feels half baked. Either this is a problem of the site which is fine, or the problem of the framework and then all bets are off.
Clicking the hamburger menu has a full second delay before it opens causing you to click multiple times thinking you missed the click target. This saves up all the click events and causes the sidebar to open and close repeatedly while you just sit there and watch. Not great.
Can't scroll on desktop Firefox, the entire site goes black in Edge. I'm sure this would work in normal Chrome, but why would I even care to try it at this point? If I can't even open the framework's page I think it's worth a skip.
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).
> The first rule of Fight Club is: you don't mess with the scroll.
Just reading this about that homepage makes me irrationally angry.
What kind of people STILL think it's okay to mess with the scroll? Have you not learned after 15 year of that practice being shunned? I want to fire the entire we dev department for that blunder and hire competent people. Fortunately, I don't even work there.
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!
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 :)
Lustre (hi, author here) has isomorphic components so you can render components both on the client or as realtime LiveView-esque things on the server, which I think is what the commenter was alluding to.
Definitely not a full-stack framework though: firmly a frontend thing just it blurs what "frontend" means a little! Hologram has a wider scope here being built on top of Phoenix.
It could be advantageous for applications that need to work offline. It doesn’t seem to need a server connection, making it more like React than LiveView. I may be misunderstanding though! I’ve not tried it myself.
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.
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.
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
Not sure if this is a launch or anything. I came across this on an Elixir forum and found it interesting enough to be posted on HN. That's it.
Not sure why everything must be a "launch" - there is more in life than drinking the kool-aid of start-ups. Not everything needs/wants to be the JS-bro full stack framework of the week. Like, playing with some tech and some ideas just for the f* of it.
yeah, guess you gotta be careful with that, maybe there should be a tag like [Found] or [Discovered] so people don't jump to the conclusion that this is your framework that you're looking for critical feedback on.
It's the other way around. People should only assume the poster is looking for critical feedback when they see "Show HN" in the title. Which is not to say this can't be critiqued, but the grandparent was way off base
What launch? What execution? Some random person just posted to HN a link that happens to be publicly viewable. How does that translate to 'launching a framework'?
Of course you are allowed to criticize it, but at least criticize it for what it's trying to do, not based on some criteria that you just made up? Do you criticize water for not being dry?
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?
I think the author might have a debug build enabled. If you open the console you can see timing information logged. Loading the introduction page of the docs [0] logs...
[Debug] Hologram: runtime script executed [Debug] Hologram: page script executed [Log] Hologram: page rendered in – 876 – "ms" [Debug] Hologram: connected to a server
Which is kind of crazy for a page with just text. Would be super curious to see what the perf is like on a proper prod build, it looks like they've implemented at least some part of the elixir vm in js
[0]: https://hologram.page/docs/introduction
Running this on my Samsung Galaxy S23 causes the hamburger menu flyout to freeze halfway, and takes a few seconds for it to appear at all.
I like the idea though. Post again when you get the bugs worked out!
Mobile Safari takes at least two taps for most links on any page. Eg try going to https://yawaramin.github.io/dream-html/dream-html/Dream_html... then tapping on the first link in the content area, 'Form'. It's just a simple <a> tag but takes at least two taps to make it load the page.
It seems like mobile Safari treats the first tap as 'selecting' the link, and the second one as actually navigating to it.
I had to tap at least five times on the burger menu... It feels half baked. Either this is a problem of the site which is fine, or the problem of the framework and then all bets are off.
Weirdly those content links all work fine for me. The only one I’ve noticed does the double tap is the LiveReload button in the text (linking to https://yawaramin.github.io/dream-html/dream-html/Dream_html...)
no, my experience in both firefox and chromium on android is equally poor
Clicking the hamburger menu has a full second delay before it opens causing you to click multiple times thinking you missed the click target. This saves up all the click events and causes the sidebar to open and close repeatedly while you just sit there and watch. Not great.
Can't scroll on desktop Firefox, the entire site goes black in Edge. I'm sure this would work in normal Chrome, but why would I even care to try it at this point? If I can't even open the framework's page I think it's worth a skip.
Single tabs on links with iOS Safari work just fine with me.
It does not feel slow to me, but I don't know what timings should usually be achieved.
iphone13 mini 18.2.1 iOS works fine for me
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).
> The first rule of Fight Club is: you don't mess with the scroll.
Just reading this about that homepage makes me irrationally angry.
What kind of people STILL think it's okay to mess with the scroll? Have you not learned after 15 year of that practice being shunned? I want to fire the entire we dev department for that blunder and hire competent people. Fortunately, I don't even work there.
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!
Reply
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 :)
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
I don't think that's a full-stack framework?
Lustre (hi, author here) has isomorphic components so you can render components both on the client or as realtime LiveView-esque things on the server, which I think is what the commenter was alluding to.
Definitely not a full-stack framework though: firmly a frontend thing just it blurs what "frontend" means a little! Hologram has a wider scope here being built on top of Phoenix.
I can't really see what this brings to the table that phoenix doesn't. Seems more minimal?
It could be advantageous for applications that need to work offline. It doesn’t seem to need a server connection, making it more like React than LiveView. I may be misunderstanding though! I’ve not tried it myself.
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.
Oh that's super interesting. But won't that be a super heavy wasm binary?
I did some basic logic, bundled in jsone and it turned out to be around 75 k before running optimizer, tree shaking and gzipping.
You can see the demo here https://erwasm.github.io/erwasm-vue/
I’d love to learn more about your project! Is it public?
Yep, there is erwasmc thingy on github and a bunch of demos you can play with.
I posted one here before ( https://erwasm.github.io/erwasm-vue/ )
Thank you
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.
I really like the idea and it aligns with my thinking. Its missing some basic docs though
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
Not sure if this is a launch or anything. I came across this on an Elixir forum and found it interesting enough to be posted on HN. That's it.
Not sure why everything must be a "launch" - there is more in life than drinking the kool-aid of start-ups. Not everything needs/wants to be the JS-bro full stack framework of the week. Like, playing with some tech and some ideas just for the f* of it.
Thanks for the context. Interesting how it made the front page without a single component though (coming soon.)
I guess the crowd just loves idiomatic frameworks, especially in cool languages.
yeah, guess you gotta be careful with that, maybe there should be a tag like [Found] or [Discovered] so people don't jump to the conclusion that this is your framework that you're looking for critical feedback on.
It's the other way around. People should only assume the poster is looking for critical feedback when they see "Show HN" in the title. Which is not to say this can't be critiqued, but the grandparent was way off base
https://news.ycombinator.com/show
What launch? What execution? Some random person just posted to HN a link that happens to be publicly viewable. How does that translate to 'launching a framework'?
so im not allowed to criticize it because somebody posted a random link to it?
Of course you are allowed to criticize it, but at least criticize it for what it's trying to do, not based on some criteria that you just made up? Do you criticize water for not being dry?
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