A Short Survey on the State of Functional Reactive Programming in ClojureScript

In the Object-Oriented world of JavaScript, architectures like MVP, MVC, and their brethren are well established. But when I started using ClojureScript to build rich user interfaces on the web, I was naturally interested in finding ways to architect my site that are friendly to a functional programming language like Clojure. This led me to functional reactive programming, or FRP.

FRP, probably the best-known user interface paradigm for functional programming, models UIs as dataflows, where changes (user actions or data source changes) propagate through the system using purely functional operations and eventually end up as visual changes back in the UI. In short, FRP is similar to how changes to a cell in a spreadsheet propagate to other dependent cells.

Though the ClojureScript ecosystem is still fairly immature (or perhaps because it is), there are many libraries which support the FRP style of programming. If you are looking for an alternative to faking object-oriented styles of programming in ClojureScript, jump in and give one or more a try!

(By the way, if you want my personal recommendation, I have had a lot of luck with the simplicity and power of widje.)

Native ClojureScript libraries

C2

• todoFRP's C2 example (Github)

cljs-binding

• cljs-binding (Github)

Javelin

• Javelin (Github)
• todoFRP's Javelin example (Github)

Pedestal

• Pedestal
• "Getting Started with Pedestal on Client Side" (blog post)

Reflex

• Reflex (Github)
• todoFRP's Reflex example (Github)

Shafty

• Shafty (Github)

Widje

• widje (Github)
• todoFRP's Widje example (Github)

ClojureScript libraries built on top of JavaScript libraries

acute (wrapper around AngularJS)

• acute (Github)

rx-cljs (wrapper around RxJS)

• rx-cljs (Github)
• RxJS (Github)

Yolk (wrapper around Bacon.js)

• Yolk (Github)
• Wilkes Joiner on Yolk and FRP (YouTube video)
• Yolk Examples (Github)
• Bacon.js (Github)

Clang (wrapper around AngularJS)

• Clang (Github)

Using JavaScript libraries directly

AngularJS

• todoFRP's AngularJS example (Github)
• Egghead AngularJS tutorial videos
• Explorations by Konrad Garus
• Blog posts about ClojureScript + AngularJS
• hello-cljs-angular example (Github)
• Angular Tutorial in CLJS (Github)