SAFE - A web stack designed for developer happiness

The following document describes a SAFE-Stack sample project that brings together CQRS/Event-Sourcing on the backend and the Elm architecture on the frontend.

SAFE is a technology stack that brings together several technologies into a single, coherent stack for typesafe, flexible end-to-end web-enabled applications that are written entirely in F#.

SAFE-ConfPlanner

This is the sample project that is used in the talk "Domain Driven UI" (Slides). The title is a bit misleading as it is a bad name for "Reusing your datatypes and behaviour from your CQRS/Event-Sourced models in your Elm-architecture application."

Given you use F# and Fable, you can actually build simple eventually connected systems and have the exact same model working in back and frontend.

The application showcases a couple of things:

• The reuse of the complete domain model on the client and server.
• It shows the nice fit of and similarity between CQRS/Event-Sourcing on the backend and the Elm-Architecture on the frontend.
• It reuses projections from the backend in the update function of the elmish app. The backend is sending domain events to the frontend and the (Elm-)model is updated with the help of projections defined in the backend (on all clients that are connected via websockets).
• It shows an easy way of implementing "Whatif"-Scenarios, i.e. scenarios that enable the user try out different actions. When the user is happy with the result the system sends a batch of commands to the server. When "Whatif-Mode" is enabled the client reuses not only the projections but also the domain behaviour defined on the server to create the events needed by the update function. The potential commands are also stored.
• There is also an "All or nothing" mode for whatifs. If one command does not succeeds, none of them succeeds
• It uses the awesome Fulma library for styling
• It has BDD Style tests that show how nice the behaviour of Event-Sourced systems can be tested.
• Websockets with Elmish/Suave

Content

This project consists of 6 dotnetcore subprojects

• Domain - Message-based CQRS implementation of the Domain of a ConferencePlanner.
• Domain.Tests - BDD-Style Tests for the Domain
• Client - Fable Project that uses the Elm-Architecture (with Fable-Elmish). It reuses the projections of the Domain project. Furthermore it and can also reuse the behaviour of the Domain (when switched to WhatIf-Mode)
• Server - A Suave Webserver that allows the Client to connect via Websockets.
• EventSourced - This is where all the backend infrastructure is implemented. It contains an event store with a simple in-memory storage, command and query handlers and the types that hold everything together. Most of the infrastructure is implemented asynchronously with the help of F#s awesome Mailbox Processors
• Support - A simple project to fill the EventStore with some initial values.

Requirements

• dotnet core SDK 3.1.x The .NET Core SDK
• node.js - JavaScript runtime
• yarn - Package manager for npm modules

Installation/Development mode

This development stack is designed to be used with minimal tooling. An instance of Visual Studio Code together with the excellent Ionide plugin should be enough.

• Clone the repository
• In the cloned directory
  • install paket: dotnet tool restore
  • install dotnet packages: dotnet paket install
  • install js packages: yarn install
• for the tests
  • run dotnet testin the root dir
• for the client
  • run yarn watch in the root dir
• for the server
  • open another terminal and go to src\Server
  • run dotnet run for the server (or dotnet watch run for watchmode)
• go to localhost:8080
• enjoy

Plans for the future

From the top of my head. If anyone wants to chip in, feel welcome.

Deployment

• make use of Azure to deploy the application

Infrastructure

• extract the project into its own repository and make it a bit more production ready :D
• implement at least one different event store implementation (e.g. SQLite or Azure something something)
• implement projections that can send notifications

Server

• switch to giraffe
• implement a proper autohrization system

Domain

• would build the domain a bit differently nowadays
• build an actual Conference Planner

Known Issues

Getting rid of errors in chrome/firefox

• Either comment out the lines in App.fs:

#if DEBUG
|> Program.withDebugger
#endif

• Or install the Redux DevTools as a Chrome/Firefox Extensions (recommended) Only one error remains, when visiting the WebApp the first time.

Maintainer(s)

• @rommsen
• @heimeshoff
• you?