EmberConf 2017: State of the Union (opens in new tab)

(emberjs.com)

132 pointschadhietala18y ago19 comments

19 comments

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.

0xADADA8y 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).

Sancty8y 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.

mwpmaybe8y 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?

1 more reply

lurker7898y 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.

mixonic8y 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...

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/annou...

Of course we're attacking that from the other side as well, and experimenting with native ES classes in Glimmer.

lurker7898y ago

<3 mixonic, thanks for the reply, I was scouring the repo / blog for any word on typescript support, this looks promising.

orf8y 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!

jsnk8y ago

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

mmun8y ago

The typical strategy is to design a language that compiles to Handlebars, e.g. http://emblemjs.com/.

It would be possible to support other languages more directly but they will tend to have a Handlebarsy flavor.

echelon8y 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.

2 more replies

dbbk8y ago

I don't believe so. However the rendering engine is optimised for Handlebars, it can statically analyse what parts of your template are dynamic and what are not. I think the performance benefits are worth learning a new template syntax.

ddoolin8y ago

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

_m8fo8y ago

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

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

19 comments

mwpmaybe8y ago

0xADADA8y 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).

Sancty8y ago

mwpmaybe8y 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?

1 more reply

lurker7898y ago

mixonic8y 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...

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/annou...

Of course we're attacking that from the other side as well, and experimenting with native ES classes in Glimmer.

lurker7898y ago

<3 mixonic, thanks for the reply, I was scouring the repo / blog for any word on typescript support, this looks promising.

orf8y ago

The future is looking bright for Ember! Well done!

jsnk8y ago

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

mmun8y ago

The typical strategy is to design a language that compiles to Handlebars, e.g. http://emblemjs.com/.

It would be possible to support other languages more directly but they will tend to have a Handlebarsy flavor.

echelon8y 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.

2 more replies

dbbk8y ago

ddoolin8y ago

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

_m8fo8y ago

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

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse