frontend: begin removing elm-spa

elm-spa has kind of been a nightmare to use, most recently I have been
unable to appropriately handle URL query param changes (when a link is
clicked to the same page with a different `?id` parameter, I want to
handle that and scroll to that position on the page) because `Effect.fromCmd`
in this context just.. does nothing. It doesn't run. I spent over 10 hours
trying to debug it, but came up dry. The page's `init` function does in
fact have that effect returned, but the task just.. never runs. There is
no error from the task, it only sends a message. The message never gets
sent.

It's also been annoying in other ways: we cannot have truly dynamic URLs
which we need for handling `/github.com/foo/bar` project routes that are
not pre-defined and so we must instead use the NotFound page to serve our
actual primary interace. It's dev server misunderstands `/github.com` to
be a file because it has 'an extension' and so it tries to read/serve that
file from disk rather than our SPA app.

Overall, now that I know a bit more about Elm I would not choose it for
most projects. I see what it's trying to do, and certainly there are use
cases it's better suited for than this - but in both projects I've done
in Elm now (codestat.dev and doctree) I have regretted using it generally.

Signed-off-by: Stephen Gutekanst <[email protected]>

Author: Stephen Gutekanst

.gitignore

@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 .DS_Store
-.elm-spa
 elm-stuff
 node_modules
 dist

Taskfile.yml

@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ tasks:
     desc: Run Elm frontend dev server
     dir: frontend
     cmds:
-      - npx elm-spa server | grep -v 'Ready at'
+      - npx elm-live src/Main.elm
 
   build:
     desc: Build Go + Elm code in release mode
@@ -52,26 +52,22 @@ tasks:
     desc: Build Elm frontend code (debug mode)
     dir: frontend
     cmds:
-      - npx elm-spa gen
       - mkdir -p public/dist/
-      - npx elm make --debug .elm-spa/defaults/Main.elm --output ./public/dist/elm.js
+      - npx elm make --debug src/Main.elm --output ./public/dist/elm.js
     sources:
       - ./frontend/src/**/*.elm
     generates:
-      - .elm-spa/**/*
       - ./frontend/public/dist/elm.js
 
   build-elm-release:
     desc: Build Elm frontend code (release mode, minified, etc.)
     dir: frontend
     cmds:
-      - npx elm-spa gen
       - mkdir -p public/dist/
-      - npx elm make .elm-spa/defaults/Main.elm --optimize --output ./public/dist/elm.js
+      - npx elm make src/Main.elm --optimize --output ./public/dist/elm.js
     sources:
       - ./frontend/src/**/*.elm
     generates:
-      - .elm-spa/**/*
       - ./frontend/public/dist/elm.js
 
   build-go-debug:

cmd/doctree/serve.go

@@ -367,7 +367,7 @@ app.ports.observeElementID.subscribe(function(id) {
 
 func frontendHandler(cloudMode bool) http.Handler {
 	if debugServer := os.Getenv("ELM_DEBUG_SERVER"); debugServer != "" {
-		// Reverse proxy to the elm-spa debug server for hot code reloading, etc.
+		// Reverse proxy to the elm-live debug server for hot code reloading, etc.
 		remote, err := url.Parse(debugServer)
 		if err != nil {
 			panic(err)

docs/development.md

@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
 brew install go-task/tap/go-task
 ```
 
-Then ensure [Elm](https://elm-lang.org/), [elm-spa](https://elm-spa.dev), frontend dependencies and Zig libraries are cloned using:
+Then ensure [Elm](https://elm-lang.org/), frontend dependencies and Zig libraries are cloned using:
 
 ```sh
 task setup

frontend/elm.json

@@ -1,36 +1,31 @@
 {
-    "type": "application",
-    "source-directories": [
-        "src",
-        ".elm-spa/defaults",
-        ".elm-spa/generated"
-    ],
-    "elm-version": "0.19.1",
-    "dependencies": {
-        "direct": {
-            "NoRedInk/elm-json-decode-pipeline": "1.0.1",
-            "dillonkearns/elm-markdown": "7.0.0",
-            "elm/browser": "1.0.2",
-            "elm/core": "1.0.5",
-            "elm/html": "1.0.0",
-            "elm/http": "2.0.0",
-            "elm/json": "1.1.3",
-            "elm/url": "1.0.0",
-            "mdgriffith/elm-ui": "1.1.8",
-            "ryannhg/elm-spa": "6.0.0"
-        },
-        "indirect": {
-            "elm/bytes": "1.0.8",
-            "elm/file": "1.0.5",
-            "elm/parser": "1.1.0",
-            "elm/regex": "1.0.0",
-            "elm/time": "1.0.0",
-            "elm/virtual-dom": "1.0.2",
-            "rtfeldman/elm-hex": "1.0.0"
-        }
+  "type": "application",
+  "source-directories": ["src"],
+  "elm-version": "0.19.1",
+  "dependencies": {
+    "direct": {
+      "NoRedInk/elm-json-decode-pipeline": "1.0.1",
+      "dillonkearns/elm-markdown": "7.0.0",
+      "elm/browser": "1.0.2",
+      "elm/core": "1.0.5",
+      "elm/html": "1.0.0",
+      "elm/http": "2.0.0",
+      "elm/json": "1.1.3",
+      "elm/url": "1.0.0",
+      "mdgriffith/elm-ui": "1.1.8"
     },
-    "test-dependencies": {
-        "direct": {},
-        "indirect": {}
+    "indirect": {
+      "elm/bytes": "1.0.8",
+      "elm/file": "1.0.5",
+      "elm/parser": "1.1.0",
+      "elm/regex": "1.0.0",
+      "elm/time": "1.0.0",
+      "elm/virtual-dom": "1.0.2",
+      "rtfeldman/elm-hex": "1.0.0"
     }
+  },
+  "test-dependencies": {
+    "direct": {},
+    "indirect": {}
+  }
 }