Erik Wendel

In times where a jungle of JavaScript frameworks wants to solve every conceivable problem in web app development, creating headaches and javascript fatigue in the process, Elm offers a different approach. Elm is a functional programming language that you can use instead of JavaScript — or alongside it. 

Elm builds on the concepts of virtual dom and unidirectional data flow popularized by React and Redux, but with a sound typesystem, built-in immutability, and an amazing compiler that catches errors before you even run your code. Simply put, Elm is a great language that will make your backend team jealous. 

In this talk you'll see how Elm works and learn how to use it to build a web app. I will emphasize the advantages and disadvantages it brings compared to React with Redux (my current JS favourite). 

This talk is not aimed at experienced functional programmers coming from languages such as Haskell, but rather JavaScript developers seeking a more functional approach in their daily work. It serves both as a introduction to Elm and typed, ML-style functional programming.

2017

ReactJS Day

Introduction To Elm For React Developers

At SpareBank1, Norway's second largest bank, we've used React in production for about two years. This past year we've introduced both React and Redux to the largest branch of the organization - the online banking app for desktop. This means writing all new features in React, and gradually re-writing our old pages as their near their end-of-life. 

The interesting part is how we've lifted our frontend collaboration to the organizational level. We've created a shared component library - meaning hundreds of npm modules containing all you need to create a large and modern SPA. This includes having an automatically updated design guide utilizing these components, also serving as a platform for discussion between frontend devs, graphical and interaction designers. 

Having close to 150 developers and designers working together across 20+ teams and application - really is frontend at scale. This talk can be seen as a natural continuation of my 2015 ReactJS Day talk "How We Used React To Tame The SPA Beast", although having seen it is definitely not a requirement.