I wanted to mention ( as most comments tend to be focused on issues/problems rather then whats NOT a problem) I find the entire http4k project quite exemplary in both function and style/form. At first glance (long time ago) my impression was that it must be deficient because the the code-base was too small and the style - simple and elegant -- to the point I was skeptical it would actually work in 'the real world' I have verified to my satisfaction that I was totally wrong. The apparent simplicity is actually elegance -- a direct representative of the overall design architecture. So much so that I still have a hard time figuring out how to use it -- it is so different form 'conventional' style/architecture that my instincts of where and what to look for are worthless I dont know what to suggest or how exactly to improve that -- just a comment that it is difficult to grasp how to use the various pieces and how they fit together -- because it was designed and implemented so well -- but differently -- I will speculate many people have a hard time 'Seeing the Obvious' -- I do ... but when I do -- its worth it> So thank you -- not just for a great library but also an inspiration and example of excellent engineering we could all strive to follow as a model of something done well.

@DALDEI Thank you for your (extremely) kind words. 🙂 I've been thinking all night about how to reply to you but still don't exactly know what to say, apart from that we're thrilled that people seem to like http4k as much as they do. That said, a lot of the library is simply a refinement of all the things that have preceded it, and a lot of the inspiration has been stolen from here, there and everywhere. We've also been thinking recently about how to make the learning side of things a little more friendly, especially in terms of rearranging the website. We've obviously got the cookbook and the module guide, but I'm not sure if that's the best way to present it in terms of discovery - maybe some blog articles or step-by-step tutorials would help? As you mentioned - a lot of the actual concepts are quite straightforward, so much so that we've been worried that tutorial type content might read as little insulting to the reader! As always, if you've got any questions about anything then please go ahead - we're always happy to answer them (at length) on the channel.

Thanks. Suggestion/Oppionion Do NOT worry for one second about insulting the reader. Its useful to sepreate 'basic' from 'advanced' but IMHO the basic stuff is 1000x more crucial to detail. 'Advanced' stuff is well served by example/source like the cook book. But 'basic' stuff -- not so much. If you dont have a solid understanding of the motive and design you need a LOT of handholding to figure out even 'trivial' things. Once you do, I find people have little issue simply skipping over the stuff they know already. I dont recall ever (30+yrs) of anyone who had problems with documentation being to basic -- as long as that wasn't ALL of it . THe more 'advanced' one gets the more useful its to go over the basics occasionlly 'as if' you didnt know it-- you' ll discover you didn't really. this, IMHO, is the difficult issue with technology and documentation of any sort -- by the time your are expert at anything you have forgotten what it was like when you were not. This implicitly makes it difficult for yourself and others because so many things seem 'so obvious' that you dont even thihnk about them -- let alone consider documenting them or questioning your belive

@DALDEI Thank you so much for those words! It makes us extremely happy to see people having this kind of experience using http4k. We've tried our best to elevate the basic concepts of the library in our docs, and even tried to convey in our talks that our core is so small that people could just try and write it themselves on top of whatever web stack they're currently using. I personally feel that we're still swimming against the tide of overcomplicated frameworks though. Many people I speak to still believe the notion that one needs something like Spring in order to be productive. We, on the other hand, value simplicity and testability, and have found Kotlin to be a great medium to create simple HTTP building blocks, and show that basic composition can go a long way. The fact we have 30+ modules, all of them small, and people can just pick and choose the bits they need, to me is also a measure of success. To give credit where credit is due, @dave has done a brilliant job at keeping http4k evolving and giving a first class level of support to its community. My volume of contribution is small nowadays, and my time to help people practically non-existing, so I'm extremely grateful for all of his hard work. Back to your feedback, we'll try and find new ways to present our approach. Since we started writing http4k we've replicated the same few patterns of implementation in various projects, and you're right: sometimes "seeing the obvious" is very hard...

Every day someone is weaned off of Spring-Addiction, Angels Sing. Seriously (in addition) ... A major factor which attracted me to Kotlin is that I felt like I did when I first learned "C", and when I learned early Unix and had seen some of the source code. In direct comparison at the time to languages like Assembly aand Fortran, and to OS's like VMS and IBM 360 -- a markedly similar feeling of wonder -- that something could be simultaneously 'simpler' -- or at least appear that way 🙂 -- yet neither missing anything I thought important and in fact adding value by means of unification of data models. almost 40 years FF through generations of evolution, advancement, complication, rebellion to complication creating its own cycle of complexity ... where the 'New Normal' is both so complex its incomprehensible and simultaneously too simplistic to function properly. ( spring / JSON , modern OS's etc) Kotlin brings back the same clarity I got from C and early unix -- for me at least. Its good to see others sharing a similar view -- maybe we have another good decade ahead before the cycle comes around and we rebel against the monsters we have made.