What We're Doing While Stuck At Home: Phoenix LiveView

Hi Friends,

We sincerely hope you are safe and well. It’s tough out there. People are hurting. The future feels more uncertain. Normal life has been disrupted.

And yet there is hope. Hope that the steps we’re taking now lead to a healthier tomorrow. Hope that the illusions or priorities in our lives that needed a disruption are more wisely reconstructed. Hope that since we’re all in this together we’ll learn to live and work better together. 🕊

All we know to do right now is to love our neighbors, find a way to respectfully reach across the social distance, and continue (as time and health permits) to be creative and do our best work.

Working From Home, As Always

Mike has worked from home for over two decades, and I (Nicole) made the move from a corporate desk to wearing slippers in our home office fifteen years ago. 🏡 So thankfully, when our statewide stay-at-home order went out, we were already accustomed to creating, learning, and teaching new things from home.

Building LiveView Examples

Last year we started working on a Phoenix course, and as LiveView began to heat up we knew it would play a big role in the course. So a few months ago we immersed ourselves in LiveView.

The simple programming model makes it a really fun library to use. 🎉 So much fun, in fact, that we couldn’t seem to stop using it to build all sorts of interactive UI features that traditionally require custom JavaScript. Things like reacting to button clicks, form validation, autocomplete, and real-time updates.

After building a dozen or so of these features, we realized they wouldn’t all make sense in the application we created for the Phoenix course. Some of the LiveView examples would end up on the cutting room floor. 😣

But then Mike thought, “Hey, we could turn this into a fun and practical mini-course!” So that’s exactly what we’re doing while stuck at home. 👍🏻

It’s a Free Course!

Initially we didn’t know if a Phoenix LiveView course would be paid or free. It’s now clear to us that we want to make it available for free. While we believe the course offers a lot of value—so far we have 3 detailed animations and 12 code examples for you—we want to offer it as a gift. 🎁

First Video Now Available

To get things rolling, today we’re releasing a 4-minute animated video answering the question “What Is LiveView?” Check it out, along with a preliminary course outline, and let us know what you think.

Get Progress Reports

If you want to get updates and a behind-the-scenes view on our progress as we finalize the course, please add your email to the mailing list. It would also be encouraging to hear that you’re interested. 😉

People need access to good online, educational material, perhaps now more than ever. 👩‍💻 And, as always, we’re committed to doing what we can to contribute with high-quality, concise videos. We hope to see you in the Studio soon!

May you have good health and peace in these times,

~ Nicole & Mike