I wish Ember, which I find to be an awesome and enjoyable framework, was more popular and brought up more often in discussions across the web. I've contemplated what are realistic options are to help it accomplish this and compiled them here.
When I see something like this:
I wish I could see an Ember logo. Or perhaps more appropriately, Glimmer. I would love for Glimmer to level up as a library, and think it can be used as the entry point for folks to play with before diving into Ember. It can be the React/Vue/Svelte to Ember's Next/Nuxt/Sveltekit. Anywhere the above logos pop up, Glimmer should be there showing off it's lovely syntax.
More examples:
Admittedly a big aspect of this is riding the waves of momentum that come along, but I don't see that as a negative. The fact Svelte and Vue were so easily integratable into Astro is a plus for them. What is stopping Glimmer from doing the same? Other things might be tricker, for example Preact/Solid/Qwik get an easy boost in momentum by the nature of being React-esque, JSX based frameworks that have devs openly and actively cross-pollinating tech, though I wonder if there are strides to make there?
For example, Preact introducing signals recently (despite their older variations in Solid, Vue, etc.) seems to have caused this huge wave of discussion. Couldn't have Starbeam done that? Did we just need more hands on that? Was it too slow? Not fast enough?
The main idea here with Glimmer is to raise its awareness by having it called out in these sort of "choose your framework!" waves that sweep across the web dev space, not so much that it has to compete directly as the "new guy" with a new name or something.
I have been following Astro and Qwik on Twitter, which in turn has introduced me to so many more devs, who all seem like good friends constantly talking to each, bouncing and debating ideas, etc.
On the flip side you have Glimmer with nothing new since 2017, Starbeam with nothing for months, and Ember with weeks between posts, the majority (given a few scrolls) simply being RFC/Releases on GH. Astro/Qwik feeds are full of content I want to consume and learn from. Which leads to...
I love videos like this, most of the stuff from Ben Holmes, and Ryan Carniato is a beast when it comes to talking about Solid (and mentions of Marko). Ember would benefit so much from someone like this, actively pumping out and hyping up their framework of choice. As Nullvox mentioned in Discord:
We need the excited people to talk about it.
We need someone with the mindset of oversharing
A lot of things I don't share, I feel may be obvious, even though, logically, I know that's incorrect (because it's programming, nothing is obvious 🙈 )
I'm not technically advanced enough to assist or really know what, if anything, is missing on some of these fronts but:
- Vite, building with it feels like an avenue that should be pursued more avidly. Again, it just opens this new door where a pre-existing community can discover Glimmer/Ember and transition into that ecosystem from something familiar. I'm aware of an attempt, and see that there is some discussion/allusion to this possibility, it just feels like a lower priority than it should.
- Glint/GTS/GJS, shouldn't feel like such a side project (that's just my impression). It feels like it should be an officially endorsed path, and maybe it is but it just needs more time to cook?
- Export features, in the same way Preact published Signals for consumption by other framweorks, and Qwik has layers to consume React and even Svelte components, I wonder what Ember can do similarly. Starbeam is certainly one. I know I've personally wished for something as nice as Services when I play in other frameworks. What pieces can Ember share with the web dev community? Perhaps insane, but what if Ember could actually swap out Glimmer for another view layer like React/Solid?
- Performance, I know it's not the end all be all or even the most accurate thing to measure, but why are Glimmer/Ember/Starbeam sooo far down on benchmarks like this? I think if Ember was a solid green column that showed up constantly in screenshots of folks sharing perf metrics (without even trying to highlight Ember, it just happens to be there) would bring more attention.
- SSR, it's all the rage these days, so I think it's important that Ember at least present their version of it (Fastboot? is that done/maintained?) in a way that seems seamless for someone interested in adding it in. What's Embroider's support for something like Islands look like?
Ember has a lot of strengths. It's solid upgradibility paths and stability I think is currently unmatched. Emphasis on accessibility is great. It shows clear and solid improvements every year. It has a great and friendly community free of (as far as I'm aware) any drama. I would love to see it surge back into popularity across Twitter, blogs, and the State of JS though. I think with the right PR showing how it's "kept up with the pack" and maybe filling in a few actual technical holes, this is feasible.