HyperApp takes functional JavaScript to web apps

The lightweight library is for developing scalable browser-based apps, with user interfaces built from microcomponents

HyperApp takes functional JavaScript to web apps
Dmitry Baranovskiy (CC BY 2.0)

The HyperApp JavaScript library serves as mechanism for building web applications while using a functional programming paradigm and stateless components.

Accessible via NPM, open source Hyperact has no dependencies, author Jorge Bucaran said. It's currently in a beta stage of development with version 0.6.0, although the API is not going to change.

Bucaran emphasized HyperApp's accommodations for functional programming, which offers a mathlike paradigm that can make it easier to deal with changes as a program's scope itself changes.

HyperApp also boasts a small memory footprint, providing size advantages over frameworks like Vue and Mithril, and offering speedy building, deleting, and element swapping.

With a design based on the Elm architecture pattern for web apps, the 1KB library enables development of scalable browser-based apps, with user interfaces built from microcomponents. These stateless components are framework-agnostic and reusable, and they're easy to debug. Elm-like state management and a virtual DOM engine are featured as well. Third-party components can be integrated.

On the drawing board for HyperApp is server-side rendering. Prototypes for this already have been developed by members of the HyperApp community, but Bucaran would like to offer this out of the box. Router improvements also are anticipated.

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