I hope I can add some “beginner view” to the picture: I have used / am using Phoenix + Elm for two personal (toy?) projects.
These are my first actual “works” in both - started this year -, although I followed Elixir and Elm for a long time - but only reading and thinking is of course way different to working with. I do quite a bit of web programming with C# and Angular for a living and that obviously influences my opinion.
I use Phoenix solely for the API and I think I would agree with you that not using templates and Liveview feels like I’m missing a big part of what makes Phoenix great. But considering I’ve never actually used those I could totally be wrong! Considering this is an Elixir forum I will just say: it’s a blast to work with!
About Elm: I really enjoy it. It’s a great language from my perspective and hasn’t “let me down”, so to say. I do get that I might have been lucky because my requirements aren’t high though..! I do think that the non-native websocket support is not an issue though. I am using that in my second project now and it’s really fairly simple! Maybe about 20 lines of JS “plugging” Elm and the Phoenix JS Client together.
The thing about my usage of Elm is, that I wanted to use it. I think it’s very often smarter to prefer LiveView if you can get away with not using a front-end framework. It’s just so much simpler sometimes, if your website doesn’t need the extra something?
My conclusion: I am using it and would again, because I think it’s fun and productive. I have no steakholders nor hard requirements though, which makes life “easy”. Also in these projects I’m the whole team and have no timeboxing.
Elm makes me feel like I’m forced to work well. Elixir is as great and lovely as we all know. For learning purposes or school / university projects I would recommend highly.
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