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Nicholas Scheurich - Conversational Web APIs with Phoenix Channels

Leave comments at: https://elixirforum.com/t/elixirconf-2023-nicholas-scheurich-conversational-web-apis-with-phoenix-channels/59043 Phoenix Channels are great! They’re a go-to solution for adding real-time capabilities to our apps. But with a bit of creative thinking, Channels can also provide a full-duplex alternative to web API models like REST and GraphQL. Come and learn how building a stateful, Channels-based web interface can reduce network traffic, eliminate data overhead, and provide a unified mechanism for establishing application connectivity to browsers, mobile apps, and hardware devices. After a brief introduction to (or perhaps a refresher on) Phoenix Channels, we’ll discover the interesting possibilities they represent and the problems they solve when backing a web API. You’ll learn how GridPoint leveraged Channels to build and deploy a “conversational” web API to support a critical business case, get the inside scoop on the tradeoffs involved, and learn why this model might fit your project well. Stick around until the end for an introduction to a new Elixir library that can help jump-start your explorations with a Channel-based web API.

September 5, 2023