Raku.org Chooses Htmx
8 librasteve 7 9/7/2025, 7:04:36 PM
The official https://raku.org programming language website has been rewritten using HTMX and Pico CSS. This reflects the power of HTMX to return languages other than JavaScript to the web backend.
Why not have a little bit of vanilla JS or alpine JS? The alpine homepage has similar tabbed content, but it doesn't need new HTTP calls to load each one. https://alpinejs.dev/
I feel like the Raku site would be better in HTML + vanilla JS. There's almost no interactivity, and this HTMX interactivity is worse than vanilla JS.
https://harcstack.org was used to built the new site in the spirit of use your own dogfood (other raku web modules are available)
HARC stack is centred on HTMX (thus the 'H') and Pico CSS (other CSS libs coming)
This version of HARC Stack implements the HATEOS version of tabs https://htmx.org/examples/tabs-hateoas/ since that allows for dynamic content service (but admittedly that is overkill for the current site)
HATEOS is okay for APIs. But doesn't seem useful for small static sites. Dogfooding is great! But so is using the right tool for the job. HTMX is not over-engineering things, it's made the Raku site worse than plain HTML and CSS (you can do tabbed content in pure CSS even!)
Nevertheless HARC will add some TW themes soon - next on the list after Bulma.