Fundamentals of HOWL Stack

Andrew Welch teaches us about the HOWL stack. It's "Hypermedia on Whatever You'd Like" -- you provide the backend, and choose a HOWL stack front-end like htmx or Datastar. This in-depth presentation will get you familiar with HOWL stack, so the next time it comes in a happy hour, you won't want to excuse yourself and go howl at the moon.

The HOWL stack, which stands for Hyper­me­dia On What­ev­er You’d Like, is an approach to web devel­op­ment where the back­end ren­ders and returns HTML over the wire”, and the fron­tend stitch­es this new HTML into the DOM. This approach allows devel­op­ers to use what­ev­er back­end they pre­fer. It was coined by Car­son Gross, the author of htmx. The HOWL stack is also referred to as HTML over the wire”.

Exam­ples of tech­nolo­gies that embody the HOWL stack or the HTML over the wire” approach include htmx, Lar­avel LiveWire, Phoenix Live­View, HotWire, Unpoly, and Datastar.

Watch Andrew’s pre­sen­ta­tion to learn more about the HOWL stack!