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Discussion on: The problem with Elixir Umbrella Apps

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Will Ricketts

I clicked on this post thinking "wtfm8," and ended up genuinely enjoying it. I'd be really interested in what you think as far as any distinct advantages there are to using umbrellas.

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Jack Marchant

Haha I’m glad you enjoyed it in the end.
There are definitely advantages to umbrella apps, you just need to be really strict about each app’s domain or actually have a need to scale them independently.

The former is a hard thing to do well in a team IMO

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Will Ricketts

Yeah that I can agree with for sure. Luckily the only projects in which I've used umbrellas have been silos in which I've had full control of the codebase. I find it... interesting that there are articles that recommend creating a middleman app just to get around circular dependencies. That's always seemed pretty wacko to me.

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Jack Marchant

Yes, I’ve been in that situation before, hence my frustration with umbrella apps. It seems like a code smell to me, that maybe both apps should be one rather than creating a third.

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Will Ricketts • Edited

Really well done amigo. You made a skeptic out of an umbrella fanatic!