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Overview

Here’s where you find out if alt-seven is useful for you.

This page provides a brief overview of the alt-seven framework, how it came about, and why you might want to use it.

Just what is alt-seven?

In short, alt-seven is a reactive JavaScript framework intended for building single page applications (SPA). Alt-seven attempts to simplify SPA JavaScript development by relying on core JavaScript language constructs like Template Literals for templating rather than extensions like JSX that require transpiling prior to deployment. Alt-seven has no external code dependencies, though it does offer integration with different third party libraries, and contains hooks to allow you to intgrate others in certain places. Because there is no parsing/transpiling/packaging step in alt-seven development, there is no tree shaking at this point.

How was alt-seven created?

The framework started as an exploration in reactive JavaScript development to see if it was possible to build a reactive framework for SPAs using Template Literals for templating simple, core JavaScript language, and without a build process as a necessary step for deployment. After proving those concepts, the author built the core of the framework and created some simple applications to show it off.

Why would I want it?

If you are looking for a reactive JavaScript framework for a single page application project, you should give alt-seven a look. If you are learning about JavaScript-based Web application development, you should also give alt-seven a look, as it demonstrates a lot of concepts in modern JavaScript.

  • What is it good for?: Alt-seven provides an easy way to build reactive applications in JavaScript without having to concern yourself with a lot of the details of reactive development. Some useful features:

    • remote package that provides an easy way to communicate with a back-end server via JSON
    • model for storing data
    • authentication mechanism with some back-end code examples to use for different back-ends, including Node.JS
    • logging system with multiple log levels
    • in-browser console that allows you to see log messages in the browser in real-time ( this is really useful for integrating back-end logging in real-time so you can see back-end log messages in the browser )
    • error capture
    • application router
    • simple custom event binding for components
    • publish/subscribe event model

  • What is it not good for?: If you are looking for a framework that compiles, packages, and obfuscates your application code, that’s not alt-seven.

  • What is it not yet good for?: Alt-seven has not yet been used to build a large scale deployed application, so if you are looking for a framework that is already been proved in large scale deployments, you will need to look to other frameworks like React.JS and Vue.JS.

Where should I go next?