Welcome to the official documentation for Sprocket, a real-time server-side component library for Gleam! In this guide, we'll cover the core concepts of Sprocket, but some prerequisite knowledge of Gleam is recommended. Gleam is a type-safe functional language designed to harness the power of the Erlang Beam virtual machine. Whether you are a Gleam enthusiast or new to this exciting language, this documentation will serve as your roadmap to building highly scalable, robust, and efficient server-side component views for your web application.
Fun fact: Sprocket is named after the humble bicycle gear that enables the wheels to spin effortlessly! Also, this documentation is completely powered by it!
Sprocket is designed around a collection of familiar patterns that allow developers to build web-based user interfaces with ease. The main goal is to bridge the gap between existing functional component libraries, type-safety, and real-time server rendered views so that developers can quickly construct applications without compromising on type guarantees. Embracing the strengths of the Erlang Beam virtual machine's concurrency and fault-tolerance capabilities, Sprocket is built on a solid foundation that enables scalable and fault-tolerant applications.
Sprocket embraces the idea that a large portion of web apps simply do not benefit from having a separate front-end single page application (SPA) and back-end server. In fact, this style of development can be quite costly in terms of development time and resources for little to no added benefit. Instead, Sprocket treats the browser as a "terminal" that simply renders view updates that are sent by a server. This approach simplifies the development process by allowing developers to focus on building the application's core features without having to worry about designing an API or managing state synchronization between the client and server. If an API is required, it can be built separately in a way that is specific to the application's needs, rather than being a general-purpose API that is trying to fit multiple use-cases.
While this may seem like a step back from the modern SPA architecture, consider that most web apps today require a constant connection to a server to function in a meaningful way. Moreover, the payload of a stateless API request is typically much larger than the event and diff payloads that are exchanged between the client and server in a Sprocket application. By embracing the "browser as a terminal" philosophy, Sprocket removes the overhead of an API and allows the HTTP layer to simply fall away leaving it up to the server to worry about rendering and updating the UI. This enables developers to quickly build applications that are easier to maintain with less code and fewer resources.
This is not a unique idea, but rather builds on the paradigm introduced and popularized by Phoenix LiveView in 2018. Sprocket brings these concepts to the Gleam ecosystem, providing a type-safe and component-based approach to building real-time server-rendered views.
Real-time Components: Build real-time server-rendered live views using declarative components and familiar state management patterns.
Type-Safety: Gleam's static type system gives you peace of mind that your code is free of a large category of runtime errors and provides a powerful tool for refactoring and maintaining your codebase.
Concurrency: Sprocket harnesses the power of the Erlang Beam VM to provide lightweight processes and easy-to-use abstractions for concurrent programming.
Fault-Tolerance: Battle-tested fault-tolerance mechanisms ensure that your applications are resilient even under adverse conditions.
Interoperability: Seamlessly plug-in to Erlang/Elixir's ecosystem of existing libraries with Gleam's first class FFI.
Scalable: The Erlang Beam VM's distributed nature enables you to scale your applications with ease.
Open Source: Sprocket is completely open-source and free to use. Contributions are welcome and encouraged!
In the next section, we'll cover prerequisites and getting your Sprocket application up and running.