Morph, a new embeddable fullstack library for building Hypermedia-Driven Applications without a build step, has sparked a lively debate among developers about the merits of combining server and client-side code in a PHP-like manner. The library, which runs on Hono and supports Deno, Node, and Bun runtimes, aims to simplify web development by allowing components to call their own APIs that return hypertext.
Supported Runtimes
- Deno
- Node.js
- Bun
The PHP Comparison
Many developers in the community have drawn parallels between Morph's approach and PHP's traditional model of mixing HTML and code. This comparison has triggered significant discussion about modern development practices versus older paradigms. One commenter pointedly observed that modern PHP development has evolved away from mixing business logic with templates:
Modern PHP is not written in such a way where business logic is mixed with templating. For good reason.
This sentiment reflects a broader industry shift toward separation of concerns in web development, where presentation logic is kept distinct from business logic. The debate centers on whether Morph's approach represents a regression to older practices or a pragmatic simplification for certain use cases.
Architectural Considerations
Several developers raised concerns about how Morph's architecture would handle scaling challenges. One developer noted that Morph appears to miss one of the main selling points of PHP, the shared nothing, single thread, fire and forget methodology that I can throw behind a load balancer and spin up 100 servers. This highlights an important consideration for any web framework: how well it performs under load and in distributed environments.
The discussion also touched on what constitutes the essence of PHP-like development. Some argued that simply mixing HTML and code through JavaScript tagged template literals already achieves what PHP does, questioning what additional value Morph brings beyond some css and other templating benefits.
Morph Core Principles
- Components can call their own APIs that return hypertext
- All components are server-rendered with server-side context access
- Independent component rendering and re-rendering
- Component hierarchy with nesting capabilities
- Minimal or no client-side JavaScript
- No build step required
- No need to design API data structures upfront
- Embeddable in any Deno/Node/Bun project
Component-Oriented Development
Morph's approach appears to lean more toward component-oriented development similar to frameworks like Blazor or Angular, rather than traditional PHP. The library emphasizes server-rendered components that can be independently re-rendered and nested within one another, forming a hierarchy. This model aims to combine the benefits of server-side rendering with the dynamic nature of single-page applications, while minimizing client-side JavaScript.
For developers working on smaller projects like Telegram bots, desktop apps, or internal tools, Morph offers a potentially streamlined development experience that doesn't require splitting frontend and backend into separate services. The library's focus on no build step and minimal client-side JavaScript positions it as an alternative to heavier frameworks for projects that don't warrant their complexity.
As web development continues to evolve, tools like Morph represent interesting experiments in finding the right balance between developer experience, performance, and maintainability. Whether its approach gains widespread adoption will depend on how well it addresses the concerns raised by the development community while delivering on its promise of simplification.
Reference: Morph