Gooey

A focused and flexible frontend web framework.

Works like a spreadsheet for UI: build cells of data or UI that may read other cells and Gooey makes sure everything is always up to date.

Inspired by build systems, spreadsheets, and Backbone.

Find out more about how it works and why it’s interesting.


Familiar

Build reusable Component functions (or classes, if you like) with JSX.


Straightforward

Build your application state with building blocks:

Place your calculations directly to the DOM:


Flexible

Define custom elements to add dynamic functionality onto plain old HTML documents:

tsx
import Gooey, { defineCustomElement, model, calc, dynGet } from '@srhazi/gooey';

document.body.innerHTML = `<p><my-greeting>World</my-greeting></p>`;

defineCustomElement({
  tagName: 'my-greeting',
  Component: ({ children }) => {
    const state = model({ clicks: 0 });
    return (
      <button on:click={() => (state.clicks += 1)}>
        Hello, {children}
        {calc(() => '!'.repeat(state.clicks))}
      </button>
    );
  },
});

Unique

There are a few features that make Gooey stand apart from other frameworks:

Check out how these work in the guide.


Precise

Gooey is designed to make changes to UI quickly and easily.

While it’s not the fastest tool out there, it’s decently fast!

Compared to React (which relies on virtual DOM diffing), Gooey is surgically precise: it knows what data relates to which pieces of UI and apply updates without needing to do all the work required by a virtual DOM diffing algorithm: render an entirely new tree and diff it from the prior one.

This has two benefits:

This also means that the common act of updating a small amount of data in a large application is very fast.

Here’s a crude benchmark to demonstrate rendering / updating 10k items:

tsx
import Gooey, {
  VERSION,
  Component,
  Collection,
  Model,
  mount,
  model,
  collection,
  calc,
  flush,
} from '@srhazi/gooey';

const allMeasurements = [
  { name: '1:add', count: 10000 },
  { name: '2:update-all', count: 10000 },
  { name: '3:update-some', count: 10 },
  { name: '4:insert-some', count: 10 },
  { name: '5:delete-some', count: 10 },
  { name: '6:clear', count: 10000 },
];

function getMedian(count: number, times: number[]) {
  if (times.length === 0) {
    return 'N/A';
  }
  const sorted = [...times].sort((a, b) => a - b);
  const left = sorted[Math.floor((sorted.length - 1) / 2)];
  const right = sorted[Math.ceil((sorted.length - 1) / 2)];
  const median = (left + right) / 2;
  const itemsPerMs = count / median;
  return `${median.toFixed(2)}ms (${itemsPerMs.toFixed(2)} items/ms)`;
}

const measurements: Record<string, Collection<number>> = {
  '1:add': collection<number>([]),
  '2:update-all': collection<number>([]),
  '3:update-some': collection<number>([]),
  '4:insert-some': collection<number>([]),
  '5:delete-some': collection<number>([]),
  '6:clear': collection<number>([]),
};

const measure = (name: string, fn: () => void) => {
  return () => {
    const start = performance.now();
    fn();
    flush();
    const time = performance.now() - start;
    console.log(`gooey ${name} duration`, time);
    measurements[name].push(time);
  };
};

const Benchmark: Component = () => {
  const items = collection<Model<{ val: number }>>([]);
  let itemId = 0;

  const addItems = measure('1:add', () => {
    for (let i = 0; i < 10000; ++i) {
      items.push(model({ val: itemId++ }));
    }
  });

  const updateAllItems = measure('2:update-all', () => {
    items.forEach((item) => (item.val *= 2));
  });

  const updateSomeItems = measure('3:update-some', () => {
    if (items.length === 0) return;
    for (let i = 0; i < 10; ++i) {
      items[Math.floor(Math.random() * items.length)].val *= 2;
    }
  });

  const insertSomeItems = measure('4:insert-some', () => {
    for (let i = 0; i < 10; ++i) {
      items.splice(Math.floor(Math.random() * items.length), 0, {
        val: itemId++,
      });
    }
  });

  const deleteSomeItems = measure('5:delete-some', () => {
    if (items.length === 0) return;
    for (let i = 0; i < 10; ++i) {
      items.splice(Math.floor(Math.random() * items.length), 1);
    }
  });

  const clearItems = measure('6:clear', () => {
    items.splice(0, items.length);
  });

  return (
    <div>
      <p>Gooey version {VERSION}</p>
      <p>
        <button data-gooey-add on:click={addItems}>
          Add items
        </button>
        <button data-gooey-update-all on:click={updateAllItems}>
          Update all items
        </button>
        <button data-gooey-update-some on:click={updateSomeItems}>
          Update 10 items
        </button>
        <button data-gooey-insert-some on:click={insertSomeItems}>
          Insert 10 items
        </button>
        <button data-gooey-delete-some on:click={deleteSomeItems}>
          Delete 10 items
        </button>
        <button data-gooey-clear on:click={clearItems}>
          Clear items
        </button>
      </p>
      <ul class="bx by" style="height: 100px; overflow: auto; contain: strict">
        {items.mapView((item) => (
          <li>{calc(() => item.val)}</li>
        ))}
      </ul>
      <ul>
        {allMeasurements.map(({ name, count }) => (
          <li>
            {name}:{' '}
            {calc(() => (
              <>
                {measurements[name].length} runs; median time:{' '}
                {getMedian(count, measurements[name])}
              </>
            ))}
          </li>
        ))}
      </ul>
    </div>
  );
};

mount(document.body, <Benchmark />);
tsx
import React, { useRef, useMemo, useCallback, useState } from 'react';
import * as ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import * as ReactDOMClient from 'react-dom/client';

const allMeasurements = [
  { name: '1:add', count: 10000 },
  { name: '2:update-all', count: 10000 },
  { name: '3:update-some', count: 10 },
  { name: '4:insert-some', count: 10 },
  { name: '5:delete-some', count: 10 },
  { name: '6:clear', count: 10000 },
];

function getMedian(count: number, times: number[]) {
  if (times.length === 0) {
    return 'N/A';
  }
  const sorted = [...times].sort((a, b) => a - b);
  const left = sorted[Math.floor((sorted.length - 1) / 2)];
  const right = sorted[Math.ceil((sorted.length - 1) / 2)];
  const median = (left + right) / 2;
  const itemsPerMs = count / median;
  return `${median.toFixed(2)}ms (${itemsPerMs.toFixed(2)} items/ms)`;
}

const Benchmark = () => {
  const [items, setItems] = useState<{ key: number; val: number }[]>([]);
  const [measurements, setMeasurements] = useState<Record<string, number[]>>({
    '1:add': [],
    '2:update-all': [],
    '3:update-some': [],
    '4:insert-some': [],
    '5:delete-some': [],
    '6:clear': [],
  });
  let itemId = useRef(0);

  const measure = useCallback(
    (name: string, fn: () => void) => {
      return () => {
        const start = performance.now();
        ReactDOM.flushSync(() => {
          fn();
        });
        const time = performance.now() - start;
        console.log(`react ${name} duration`, time);
        setMeasurements((measurements) => ({
          ...measurements,
          [name]: [...measurements[name], time],
        }));
      };
    },
    [setMeasurements]
  );

  const addItems = useMemo(
    () =>
      measure('1:add', () => {
        const newItems = items.slice();
        for (let i = 0; i < 10000; ++i) {
          newItems.push({
            key: itemId.current,
            val: itemId.current++,
          });
        }
        setItems(newItems);
      }),
    [items, setItems, measure]
  );

  const updateAllItems = useMemo(
    () =>
      measure('2:update-all', () => {
        setItems(items.map((item) => ({ key: item.key, val: item.val * 2 })));
      }),
    [items, setItems]
  );

  const updateSomeItems = useMemo(
    () =>
      measure('3:update-some', () => {
        const newItems = items.slice();
        for (let i = 0; i < 10; ++i) {
          newItems[Math.floor(Math.random() * newItems.length)].val *= 2;
        }
        setItems(newItems);
      }),
    [items, setItems, measure]
  );

  const insertSomeItems = useMemo(
    () =>
      measure('4:insert-some', () => {
        const newItems = items.slice();
        // Randomly add insert 10 new items to the 10k array
        for (let i = 0; i < 10; ++i) {
          const id = itemId.current++;
          newItems.splice(Math.floor(Math.random() * newItems.length), 0, {
            key: id,
            val: id,
          });
        }
        setItems(newItems);
      }),
    [items, setItems, measure]
  );

  const deleteSomeItems = useMemo(
    () =>
      measure('5:delete-some', () => {
        const newItems = items.slice();
        // Randomly delete 10 new items from the 10k array
        for (let i = 0; i < 10; ++i) {
          newItems.splice(Math.floor(Math.random() * newItems.length), 1);
        }
        setItems(newItems);
      }),
    [items, setItems, measure]
  );

  const clearItems = useMemo(
    () =>
      measure('6:clear', () => {
        setItems([]);
      }),
    [setItems, measure]
  );

  return (
    <div>
      <p>
        React version {React.version}; ReactDOM version {ReactDOM.version}
      </p>
      <p>
        <button data-react-add onClick={addItems}>
          Add items
        </button>
        <button data-react-update-all onClick={updateAllItems}>
          Update all items
        </button>
        <button data-react-update-some onClick={updateSomeItems}>
          Update 10 items
        </button>
        <button data-react-insert-some onClick={insertSomeItems}>
          Insert 10 items
        </button>
        <button data-react-delete-some onClick={deleteSomeItems}>
          Delete 10 items
        </button>
        <button data-react-clear onClick={clearItems}>
          Clear items
        </button>
      </p>
      <ul
        className="bx by"
        style={{ height: '100px', overflow: 'auto', contain: 'strict' }}
      >
        {items.map((item) => (
          <li key={item.key}>{item.val}</li>
        ))}
      </ul>
      <ul>
        {allMeasurements.map(({ name, count }) => (
          <li key={name}>
            {name}: {measurements[name].length} runs; median time:{' '}
            {getMedian(count, measurements[name])}
          </li>
        ))}
      </ul>
    </div>
  );
};

const root = ReactDOMClient.createRoot(
  document.body
);
root.render(<Benchmark />);

As the numbers show, React is pretty good at large changes to a large application all at once, but is slow to apply small changes to a large application. Gooey is very good at initial renders and really excels at applying precision updates to an existing application.

ReactGooeyComparison factor
Add 10k items206.85ms
(48.34 items/ms)
91.50ms
(109.29 items/ms)
Gooey is 2.26x faster
Update 10k items11.55ms
(865.80 items/ms)
77.05ms
(129.79 items/ms)
React is 6.67x faster
Update 10 random items3.80ms
(2.63 items/ms)
0.50ms
(20.00 items/ms)
Gooey is 7.60x faster
Insert 10 random items4.85ms
(2.06 items/ms)
3.10ms
(3.23 items/ms)
Gooey is 1.57x faster
Delete 10 random items4.80ms
(2.08 items/ms)
3.10ms
(3.23 items/ms)
Gooey is 1.55x faster
Clear 10k items34.40ms
(290.70 items/ms)
45.70ms
(218.82 items/ms)
React is 1.33x faster
Gooey v0.22.0 vs React 19.1.0; Median run over 100 runs on Chrome 135.0.7049.96
Benchmark performed on a MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019)

React is fast at updates, but slow at initial rendering. It really suffers when applications get large and small state changes cause big re-renders.

Gooey is designed to be very fast at initial rendering and fast to apply precision updates to small state changes, which are the most common places where speed really matters.


Bleeding edge

Should you use this? Maybe!

It has a robust suite of tests, but is not at version 1.0. It is unlikely to change significantly to get to version 1.0.

If you want to help, reach out!

The author can be reached via email, check https://abstract.properties.


News

- v0.22.0

Version 0.22.0 (npm, git, github) has been released.

Note: Version 0.21.0 and 0.21.1 were not published to NPM.

This version includes a major rewrite of the data layer. It significantly improves the performance of changing items in a collection.

Gooey is approaching version 1.0, which I will consider to be the “done” version. That is to say, the version at which major breaking changes are not performed, and development is solely focused on bugfixes, performance optimizations, and exposing engine internals for better debugging tools.

Changes from 0.20.0:

- v0.20.0

Version 0.20.0 (npm, git, github) has been released.

Changes from 0.19.1:

- v0.19.0

Version 0.19.1 (npm, git, github) has been released.

Changes from 0.19.0:

- v0.19.0

Version 0.19.0 (npm, git, github) has been released.

Changes from 0.18.3

- v0.18.3

Version 0.18.3 (npm, git, github) has been released.

Changes from 0.18.0

- v0.18.0

Version 0.18.0 (npm, git, github) has been released.

Changes from 0.17.3

- v0.17.3

Version 0.17.3 (npm, git, github) has been released. It is a minor bugfix release.

Changes from v0.17.2

- v0.17.2

Version 0.17.2 (npm, git, github) has been released. It has some major breaking changes.

Note: Version 0.17.0 and 0.17.1 were not published to NPM and should be avoided.

Changes from v0.16.0

- v0.16.0

Version 0.16.0 (npm, git, github) has been released. It has some major breaking changes.

Changes from v0.15.0