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by rolae 2039 days ago
No, there are three layers on how to use matestack. Without reactivity, it just creates pure HTML. If you use reactive functions like :onclick, :toggle, :async, you basically configure/fill VueJS components provided by matestack. On the third layer you can write your own VueJS components in Javascript, but still use the matestack DSL to then use/configure it.
1 comments
joelbluminator 2039 days ago
Ah. I see. I wonder if they're not just hiding a lot of complexity like that; I mean once a component becomes decently complex, that there's no way for you to implement it right without learning Vue.
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pdoub 2038 days ago
Technically yes, we're abstracting away complexity and as always, this comes with a price and has the potential to fall on your toes down the road ;) In my eyes the available core components get you quite far already, and then, once you hit a certain threshold, it's "just" Vue.js and a therefore - in our eyes - a managable and approachable additional effort given you have some experience in JS (it's not like we make you buy into a whole new paradigm/programming language/an outdated framework)
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joelbluminator 2038 days ago
Thanks for clarifying! How did you choose FE framework, what were the considerations? If you wanted to have the same DSL but with Stimulus instead of Vue - would that have worked?
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pdoub 2038 days ago
You're always welcome to ask, of course!

Regarding choice of FE framework: Back when Jonas started the prototyping (late 2017), Vue.js seemed to fit our needs perfectly due to its simple-and-leightweight-component architecture, I guess. It was also on a sweet spot between Angular and Ember (for which had you buy in on full SPA mode), React (which wasn't as lightweight back then as it has become by now, IIRC) and having to write everything in Vanilla JS. There were a bunch of other projects (like Mithril.js, Elm and Swelte, amongst others) where I'm not sure if they already were around / popular enough for us to know them, and (perhaps understandably) an existing, healthy ecosystem and some popularity & traction for other people to be able to use & extend what would eventually become Matestack were other contributing factors, and I think Vue.js continues to shine here.

Since we're getting a lot of requests on being able to use React (and now Stimulus) with the same DSL this is definitely on the roadmap, not sure on how it's going to get prioritized though. Perhaps best if you reach out to Jonas (https://twitter.com/JonasJabari), he's a lovely guy!

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