Is re-frame virtuous?

wazound · April 13, 2020, 2:41am

I can provide the author’s perspective …

I know it is exciting and sometimes useful to explore subjects with open questions designed to provoke debate. But IMO you have to be careful about the question you ask, or the answers that follow are … uninteresting.

So my question is: “Have you asked the right question?” Have you asked a question which leads to interesting answers?

To me, “Is it virtuous?” is not a useful question. As the author, I am acutely aware of how I could have made re-frame more functionally virtuous. So why didn’t I?

Perhaps a more useful question might be: “Does re-frame embody a good set of tradeoffs and in what circumstances?”

Every solution is “a point in a design space”. Tradeoffs are everywhere. And necessary.

Finally, to actually answer your question … there’s an FAQ entry which might help:

github.com

day8/re-frame/blob/master/docs/FAQs/ViewsOnGlobalRegistration.md


### Question

I feel offended by re-frame's `reg-*` API.  How is it functional to side effect globally? 

### Background

A re-frame app is defined collectively by its handlers. As an app boots, calls to registration 
functions like `reg-event-db` and `reg-sub`
collectively "build up" an app, infusing it with behaviour and capability.

Currently, this "building up" process involves the progressive mutation of
a global `registrar` (map) held internally within `re-frame`. 
Each registration adds a new entry to this `registrar`.

How should we analyse this from a functional point of view?

### Answer 

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