Contained herein is the source code that I demoed at my ElixirConf 2023 talk, “Conversational Web APIs”.
You can view the talk on YouTube and it is described thusly:
Phoenix Channels are great! They’re a go-to solution for adding real-time capabilities to our apps. But with a bit of creative thinking, Channels can also provide a full-duplex alternative to web API models like REST and GraphQL. Come and learn how building a stateful, Channels-based web interface can reduce network traffic, eliminate data overhead, and provide a unified mechanism for establishing application connectivity to browsers, mobile apps, and hardware devices.
After a brief introduction to (or perhaps a refresher on) Phoenix Channels, we’ll discover the interesting possibilities they represent and the problems they solve when backing a web API. You’ll learn how GridPoint leveraged Channels to build and deploy a “conversational” web API to support a critical business case, get the inside scoop on the tradeoffs involved, and learn why this model might fit your project well.
Stick around until the end for an introduction to a new Elixir library that can help jump-start your explorations with a Channel-based web API.
You might notice, upon cursory inspection, that it seems as though I’ve (perhaps unceremoniously), jammed the code for four separate projects into a single Git repository. Well, you’re right. I did that. But there was a small ceremony. Let’s just call it a monorepo.
The counter project is a Phoenix app that powered the audience participation bit of the talk. I know some of you in the audience were just jamming on that button—you know who you are!
To run it, mix setup and then mix phx.server. You’ll need Elixir.
The counter-client project is a Electron app that I used to display the audience count average on screen.
To run it, npm i and then npm start. You’ll need Node.js.
The lyrical project is a simple implementation of the songs app I used as an example.
To run it, mix setup and then mix phx.server. You’ll need Elixir and PostgreSQL. Check out the seeds file to set up your some songs.
The lyrical-app project is a React Native app that talks to lyrical. I demoed this app in the iPhone simulator at the end of the talk.
To run it, npm i and then npm start. You’ll need Node.js and an iOS or Android dev setup.
- “Routing patterns for manageable Phoenix Channels” by Lucas San Román is the blog post I mentioned
- ChannelHandler is the great Channels routing library I mentioned
- The
LyricalWeb.Channels.Dispatchermodule defines some example routing macros
This code is licensed under the MIT license.