Another update. I figured out how to get the encoders and decoders out of 
the ports using a native module. So I no longer have to actually send 
things across ports (still have to declare them). I can also now use Elm's 
Http module.

Here's a gist of what it takes:

https://gist.github.com/kspeakman/3f9521b0921b352c7d656261ec0a8fa6

On Saturday, February 18, 2017 at 2:22:32 AM UTC-6, Kasey Speakman wrote:
>
> An update. I'm using the ports approach to deal with JSON (and also 
> sending the HTTP request). For several months, I've had a small but 
> critical app in production using that. Another project in development is 
> too. In the process, I have run across two additional caveats with this 
> approach.
>
>    1. *Ports don't convert undefined properties to Maybe.Nothing.* It's 
>    an open issue from Jan 2016. 
>    <https://github.com/elm-lang/core/issues/476>
>    For a Maybe property, the JSON must have the property present and set 
>    to null. Otherwise error. This is particularly annoying when you store the 
>    data as JSON and pass it back to the client as-is. To work around this 
>    issue, I either have to waste space storing nulls in the database or waste 
>    (CPU/response) time server-side to inject nulls in the response.
>    
>    2. *Cmd.map can't be used with this method.*
>    Using Http module, you can use Cmd.map to take some data from the 
>    request and give it to the response Msg. Using ports, you can't do that. 
>    I've noticed this when the data is easy to provide for a request, but 
> after 
>    the response comes back it is less convenient to dig out of the model 
> (e.g. 
>    behind a case statement).
>
> Neither of these are blockers for me, just nuisance issues. It still beats 
> maintaining codecs.
>
> I've seen rumblings about tools for code-gen'ing JSON codecs for us (maybe 
> elm-format? <https://github.com/avh4/elm-format/issues/194> There also 
> exists elm-swagger, but I don't use swagger.). I dunno though. Where 
> possible, I tend to avoid code-gen because it's for handling a really 
> tedious problem. And if the code-gen fails, then I have to handle a really 
> tedious problem. (XSD/WSDL flashbacks.)
>
> All it would really take for a profound QoL improvement are a couple of 
> "special" functions on Http that handle data exactly like ports do now... 
> just saying.
>

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