Swift in the Browser with ElementaryUI

An introduction to ElementaryUI, an open-source Swift frontend framework for building web applications using WebAssembly and SwiftUI-inspired syntax.

Swift is found in many places - from tiny devices to large server applications - where it delivers modern ergonomics, strong safety guarantees, and excellent performance. Web frontend development, however, is still largely centered around JavaScript, with very little Swift in sight. With WebAssembly support firming up and Embedded Swift enabling tiny binaries, running Swift in the browser is evolving from a complicated endeavor into a viable option. In this session, we get to know the new open-source project ElementaryUI: a Swift frontend framework for building web applications. It brings Swift's safety and expressiveness to the frontend, allowing developers to describe state-driven user interfaces using an idiomatic, SwiftUI-inspired syntax while remaining firmly a web framework. The talk covers the essentials to go from zero to "Swift in the Browser": setting up a dev environment, composing views into a web UI, handling user inputs and events, and transitions and animations. A live-coding session will showcase the framework's features in action, leveraging hot-reloading for rapid iteration, before we conclude with a brief look at the road ahead. Whether you are an iOS developer looking to branch out or a web enthusiast seeking a safer alternative to JavaScript, this talk offers a practical entry point. It is time to make Swift in the browser happen! Speaker Bio Simon has spent long enough in software to know that creating a new web framework is a bad idea — and did it anyway. After falling for Swift on the server, he accidentally tumbled into the Swift + WebAssembly universe and decided to stay. As a father of two based in Austria, he is currently juggling running a business, shipping code, bedtime stories, and the unsettling realization that he might be middle-aged — all while trying to bring Swift's safety and ergonomics to the browser.