The more I read about contexts the more I think it’s a bad idea.There seems to be a big push for “Phoenix is not your application” which, as far as I can tell, is nonsense. It’s a very big anti-rails movement.
Phoenix is your application. It’s a framework that serves as the foundation which you build on top of.
Ecto, Plug e.t.c. are libraries which are not your application. You use them as libraries and as such they don’t impose any structure. You’re free to do use them as you please.
A relevant quote from dhh.
It doesn’t help that the two main people behind Phoenix and these changes propose this complex new structure and both reply with the same “oh no we can’t give examples because it all depends on what you’re building.” I don’t mean to sound too critical but this screams change for the sake of changing.
What we have now is a situation where we have multiple isolated contexts in the same app but are discouraged from actually using them as a whole. e.g. we shouldn’t have relationships to other contexts in schemas. This is pretty backwards because if you have these in the same app you are certainly going to want to use everything together.
I personally don’t think that contexts is the right solution. I also don’t think we actually had a problem in the first place. If you really need separate isolated contexts then they don’t even belong in the same app.
Contexts as they are now are a bastardization of DDD and the repository pattern.
Umbrella apps are where the attention should have been focused. Fully separate apps where necessary and a web app that ties them all together.
If I am wrong then please tell me. I realize that I sound very negative but I assure you that I’m very open to ideas.
