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https://github.com/harrysolovay/sowing-machine

🌱A React UI toolchain & JSX alternative
https://github.com/harrysolovay/sowing-machine

babel babel-macro babel-plugin eslint eslint-config eslint-plugin jsx markup react

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🌱A React UI toolchain & JSX alternative

Lists

README 

        
Sowing Machine








  






  






	







## Guide



- [Minimal Example](#minimal-example)

- [Packages](#packages)

- [Background](#background)

- [Installation & Setup](#installation--setup)

- [Describing UI](#describing-ui)

- [Creating vs. Cloning](#creating-vs-cloning)

- [Life Cycle](#life-cycle)

- [Future Direction](#future-direction)

- [Roadmap](#roadmap)

- [Contributing](#contributing)



## Minimal Example



```js

import sow from 'sowing-machine'

import {useState} from 'react'



// wrap the component with 'sow'

const Counter = sow(() => {

  const [count, setCount] = useState(0)



  const decrement = () => setCount(count - 1)

  const increment = () => setCount(count + 1)



  // express your UI and its embedded logic

  return div({className: 'wrapper'})(

    h1('current count: ', count),

    div({className: 'controls'})(

      button({onClick: decrement})`decrement`,

      button({onClick: increment})`increment`,

    ),

  )

})



// use the component

const counterInstance = sow(Counter())

```



## Packages



- [babel-plugin-sowing-machine](https://github.com/harrysolovay/sowing-machine/tree/master/packages/babel-plugin): compiles sowing machine code into a format that can be understood at runtime

- [sowing-machine](https://github.com/harrysolovay/sowing-machine/tree/master/packages/runtime): the runtime library which interprets compiled `sow` calls

- [eslint-config-sowing-machine](https://github.com/harrysolovay/sowing-machine/tree/master/packages/eslint-config): disables `no-undef` and enables a the `sowing-machine/no-undef` rule, which marks html tag identifiers as defined within sow calls

- [sowing-machine.macro](https://github.com/harrysolovay/sowing-machine/tree/master/packages/babel-macro): makes use of the [babel-plugin-macros](https://github.com/kentcdodds/babel-plugin-macros) API to provide a more seamless integration with tools such as [create-react-app](https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app), [NextJS](https://nextjs.org/) and [GatsbyJS](https://www.gatsbyjs.org/)



## Background



How do we feel about the coupling of UI logic & markup in React? Well, JSX does the trick... but it was born out of familiarity as a guiding principal (to ease the transition from HTML). This has been helpful to many user; after all, describing UI based off state is a new pattern, and JSX lowered the barrier to entry. But JSX also created some problems: beyond its redundancy, JSX suggests HTML-like behavior under the hood. Prop-passing resembles HTML attributes, instead of what it really is (passing an object to a function). Along with the misleading DX comes an extra parser stage for transpilation (in addition to the transform).



But what it really comes down to is this: **if you could have your pick of conventions, would you ever do the following?**



```jsx

// defining a function

function add({a, b}) {

  return a + b

}



// calling the function

const result = 

```



Probably not. Yet, this is what we do for every single piece of our UI in React.



We could get around using JSX by using `React.createElement` directly. [The bootstrapped create-react-app App component](https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/blob/master/packages/react-scripts/template/src/App.js)––for example––would look like this:



```js

import {createElement as e} from 'react'



const App = e(

  'div',

  {className: 'App'},

  e(

    'header',

    {className: 'App-header'},

    e('img', {src: logo, className: 'App-logo', alt: 'logo'}),

    e(

      'p',

      null,

      'Edit ',

      e('code', null, 'src/App.js'),

      ' and save to reload.',

    ),

    e(

      'a',

      {

        className: 'App-link',

        href: 'https://reactjs.org',

        target: '_blank',

        rel: 'noopener noreferrer',

      },

      'Learn React',

    ),

  ),

)

```



Although this lets us avoid JSX, it isn't very readable. `React.createElement` (`e`) is called 6 times. Depending on your formatter (prettier, for example), this could wrap in really unattractive ways. The current highlighting makes it difficult to distinguish grammar. JSX is––without a doubt––easier to work with.



But not as easy as Sowing Machine––a balance between preexisting options. It improves upon the function-call DX and lets you write less code to express the same UI. It's simple-enough to learn and master in minutes.



Here's the create-react-app example using Sowing Machine:



```js

import sow from 'sowing-machine'



const App = sow(() =>

  div({class: 'App'})(

    header({class: 'App-header'})(

      img({src: logo, class: 'App-logo', alt: 'logo'}),

      p('Edit ', code`src/App.js`, ' and save to reload'),

      a({

        class: 'App-link',

        href: 'https://reactjs.org',

        target: '_blank',

        rel: 'noopener noreferrer',

      })`Learn React`,

    ),

  ),

)

```



## Installation & Setup



#### Install the following dev dependencies:



```sh

yarn add -D babel-plugin-sowing-machine eslint-config-sowing-machine

```



> Sowing Machine is also available in Babel Macro form (`sowing-machine.macro`)



#### Install the runtime library as a dependency



```sh

yarn add sowing-machine

```



> there's no need to do this if you're using `sowing-machine.macro`



#### Add the plugin to your Babel config



`.babelrc`



```diff

{

  "plugins": [

+   "sowing-machine"

  ]

}

```



#### Add to your ESLint config as well



`.eslintrc`



```diff

{

  "extends": [

+   "sowing-machine"

  ]

}

```



And voila! You're good to go!



## Describing UI



Wrapping calls with `sow` ensures that they're transformed into valid runtime code.



```diff

import sow from 'sowing-machine'



- const HelloWorld = props =>

-   span(props)`Hello World!`



+ const HelloWorld = sow(props =>

+   span(props)`Hello World!`

+ )



- const instance = HelloWorld()

+ const instance = sow(HelloWorld())

```



To use a 3rd-party component with Sowing Machine, we need to tell the compiler that it is in fact a component (and not just a function):



```js

import sow from 'sowing-machine'

import {DatePicker} from '~/components'



// wrapping with `sow` marks the `DatePicker` as sowable

const SDatePicker = sow(DatePicker)



// use SDatePicker

const datePickerInstance = sow(SDatePicker())

```



### Ways to write an element



> note: in use, we need to wrap any of the following with `sow` (sow(div()))



#### bare



```js

hr()

```



#### with props



```js

div({some: 'prop'})

```



#### with children



```js

div(div({className: 'first-child'}), div({className: 'second-child'}))

```



#### with text



```js

h1`This is cool!`

```



#### with props and children



```js

form({className: 'form'})(

  input({type: 'email', name: 'email'}),

  input({type: 'submit', value: 'Submit'}),

)

```



#### with props & text



```js

span({className: 'warning')`beware of dog`

```



## Creating vs. Cloning



Let's say you have a component instance that you'd like to use as the basis for a new component. There's no way of expressing this with JSX. You'd need to do the following:



```jsx

import React from 'react'



const instance = 
Hello



const usingTheInstance = (

  
{React.cloneElement(instance, {}, 'Hello JSX')}


)

```



With Sowing Machine, the difference between using components and component instances is trivial:



```js

import sow from 'sowing-machine'



const instance = sow(div`Hello`)



const usingTheInstance = sow(instance`Hello Sowing Machine`)

```



## Life Cycle



### Compilation



During compilation, Sowing Machine code is broken down into a format that can be understood at runtime. There's no way––without the compilation step––to simultaneously support the following ways of describing your UI:



```js

// these cannot co-exist

div(props)

div(children)

div(props)(children)

div`child text`

div(props)`child text`

```



Sowing Machine takes care of some additional complexity: differentiating between components, functions, and implicitly embedded logic.



When working **with JSX, you need to mark your logic as off-limits to the compiler**:



```jsx

import React from 'react'



const List = ({list}) => (

  


    {list.map(e => (

      
{e}


    ))}

  


)

```



**...this isn't the case with Sowing Machine:**.



```js

import sow from 'sowing-machine'



// no need to manually distinguish between logic & markup

const List = sow(({list}) => div(list.map(e => div(e))))

```



The compiler extracts key information from each function or tag call within your `sow` calls, and places them in a lightweight, runtime-friendly wrapper.



This code:



```js

sow(div({some: 'prop'})(span`neat`, span`syntax`))

```



Gets transformed into something like this:



```js

_c(

  _s('div', [

    [{some: 'prop'}],

    [_s('span', _x, [['neat']]), _s('span', _x, [['syntax']])],

  ]),

)

```



### Runtime



When executing the code above, the runtime library will analyze the arguments of each `_s`.



The runtime goes through some of the following questions about each call: is the callee a React component? If so, are props applied? How about children? Both? Is the source a Tagged Template Expression? If we're dealing with a React component, we need to recombine the quasis. Otherwise, we need to pass quasis and expressions into the function according to [the Tagged Template Literal specification](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Template_literals). That way, libraries such as [`common-tags`](https://github.com/declandewet/common-tags) will still work.



## Future Direction



Compiling into a form that requires a runtime helper is heavily debatable (even though we do this pretty much everywhere, such as with ES6 classes). Without the runtime, it's impossible to support current `sowing-machine` syntax. However, there are other reasons that justify the (very slight) overhead. They mainly have to do with future direction for this toolchain:



- allowing a 3rd-party to orchestrate component instanciation and function calls opens the door to some powerful optimizations. React users frequently fall into unintentional re-renders and re-calculations. A key goal for the runtime is to safeguard against these pitfalls.

- styling! If you've ever used a CSS-in-JS library, chances are that you create a container component, assign it nested styles, and wrap your component root. Another key goal for the runtime is to support this pattern:



```js

import sow from 'sowing-machine'



const BlueBoxWithHello = sow(() => div`Hello`)`

  display: flex;

  justify-content: center;

  align-items: center;

  text-align: center;

  width: 100px;

  height: 100px;

  background-color: blue;

  color: #fff;

`

```



This API will be fairly minimal. It will include nested-css support and vendor-prefixing at runtime. That about covers it.



## Roadmap



|    Status     | Goal                                           | package               |

| :-----------: | :--------------------------------------------- | --------------------- |

| `in progress` | TypeScript definitions                         | runtime               |

| `in progress` | Container memoization & invalidation           | runtime               |

| `in progress` | Applying nested styles tagged onto `sow` calls | runtime               |

| `in progress` | Better errors                                  | babel-plugin, runtime |

|  `planning`   | More ESLint rules                              | eslint-plugin         |



## Contributing



If you have a feature idea or want to contribute, please go ahead and file an issue 💡