Your business depends on a modern, interactive website that offers users a unique and helpful experience. For that, you might either already include web applications or are looking to add web apps into the mix.
You’d be smart to do just that. Why? Because web apps make it possible to greatly extend the functionality of your company website.
Those web applications can be built in so many ways. You can use languages like JavaScript, Python, Java, C++, C#, PHP, or Perl, all of which are outstanding tools for developing web applications. But at some point, your developers are going to require the right framework for the job.
A framework is a pre-packaged set of tools developers can use (and re-use) to shorten the development lifecycle. In other words, developers don’t have to reinvent the wheel to get the job done. Instead of building every component, they can use a framework that includes exactly what they’re looking for, already pre-defined and configured.
There are a large number of frameworks available, some of which work with very specific languages or tasks. Phoenix is a framework created specifically to build web applications.
Phoenix was built using Elixir, which was built on the Erlang VM, and is used to build low-latency, fault-tolerant, distributed systems. For any company that currently uses Ruby on Rails, Phoenix Framework should be on your radar, because it adds considerable performance gains. To top that off, Phoenix makes it incredibly fast to build web applications. And because Phoenix has an outstanding collection of installation docs, your developers can get up and running in no time.
Features that might entice your company into adopting Phoenix Framework include:
- Simple naming conventions.
- Easy routing.
- Perfect balance between abstraction and explicitness.
- Focuses on both short-term and long-term productivity.
- Incredibly fast.
- Apps can automatically adapt to load.
- Uses the Node Package Manager (npm) for client-side tooling.
- It’s a compiled language (which makes it faster).
- Concurrency is achieved with lightweight processes within the virtual machine.
- Fault tolerance, high availability, and distribution are built-in.
LiveView
One of the most exciting features found in Phoenix Framework is called the Phoenix LiveView. This tool is a relatively new library that makes it possible for developers to build rich, real-time user experiences with nothing more than server-rendered HTML.
LiveView also adds bi-directional communication, via WebSockets, between the server and the client. This can be achieved without having to depend on dedicated, front-end JavaScript code. With LiveView, you can deploy real-time functionality to your web applications with very little effort. That functionality alone makes Phoenix Framework worth the price of admission.
LiveView might be one of the best methods of building real-time web applications. To make this even more appealing, developers only need to add the –live option (when creating a new app) to add the LiveView dependencies. So not only is LiveView an outstanding means of building modern, real-time web applications, it’s possible to do so very easily. And because Phoenix LiveView makes it possible to create enterprise-class applications, this framework is capable of serving businesses of any size.
LiveView makes all of this possible because it’s a library that consists of server-rendered templates with client-side live updates.
In fact, Phoenix Framework makes many things possible with single commands such as:
- Full CRUD (create, read, update and delete) with templates and controllers.
- REST-like CRUD.
- Full JSON replies (instead of HTML).
For any company looking for the ability to create lightning-fast web applications at lightning-fast speeds, Phoenix Framework might be the exact tool for you.
One thing to know about LiveView is that it is relatively new and development for the library is happening fast. But when you do find issues with LiveView, its GitHub community is very responsive and your issues can be resolved in minutes.
Other features of LiveView include:
- Declarative module for rendering HTML on the server-side.
- Smart templating and change tracking.
- Live form validation (which also includes file upload support).
- Rich integration API included.
- Code reuse via components.
- Live navigation for link enrichment and redirects.
- A latency simulator.
- Testing tools.
Who uses Phoenix Framework?
At this point, you shouldn’t be surprised at the companies using Phoenix Framework. Companies such as these are working with Phoenix Framework are using the tool to build responsive, real-time web apps:
- Bleacher Report
- Inverse
- Brightcove
- Heroic Labs
- CargoSense
- Voice Layer
- Podium
And because Phoenix Framework is open-source, you can download and use it for free. But don’t think that you won’t find support because Phoenix Framework is such a young tool. The community surrounding this development platform is growing fast, and the number of online tutorials available should make it a win-win for your business.
Conclusion
If your company has been depending on Ruby on Rails, and have found it to be somewhat limiting, Phoenix Framework is ready to pick up the slack and help your development teams build high-quality, real-time web applications. Just remember, in order to use Phoenix Framework, your developers will have to know the Elixir language, so this might not be quite as straightforward as the framework alone would make it seem. So before your developers dive into Phoenix Framework, make sure they start out with Elixir.
