6–9 Jul 2026
Europe/Warsaw timezone

Plumbing Your Way to React: Using Plumber APIs to Evolve Shiny Systems

8 Jul 2026, 11:10
20m
Talks (15-20 minutes) Talks

Speaker

Deepansh Khurana (Dimwit Labs)

Description

In 2024, I talked about How I Built An API for My Life (and How You Can Too) which was a personal life tracker, called Hrafnagud, built using a slew of services but primarily with the support of R, namely, {plumber} and {shiny}. This was an API with a chunk of different endpoints for finance, travel, and more. The key focus was building the first iteration of such a system, and as the system matured, I learned that a good path for an R developer is to decouple R the backend and R the fronted.

In this talk, which is a spiritual sequel, I will discuss about what happens after the API exists, and where do you go from there. With maturity, a system tends to outgrow UI-centric platforms, not that it has to, but there is a natural progression to it all. The purpose is not to discourage you from using Shiny but looking beyond it, if and when necessary, and to empower teams to embrace several technologies where {plumber}, and {plumber2}, act as a narrative glue between different ways to consume APIs. I will also talk about the least disruptive rewrite, using LLM-based APIs, and how React can help enable an extensive and multi-modal way to consume an API that still uses R on the backend.

For a viewer, they would take away inspiration as well as systems-level thinking that empowers them to break beyond their comfort zone to embrace solutions that work for them, combine them in wonderful ways, and build something that truly lasts: as much as the ephemeral nature of software allows, of course.

If you used AI tools or services to support the preparation of this submission, please state the name and reason for using each of them.

No AI tools/services were used

Keywords: Please list up to 5 keywords to help us find the right session for your contribution. shiny, api, plumber, react, systems design
Virtual Option This submission is for onsite presentation only
Video Recording Video sharing is fine
The author(s) agree(s) to take responsibility and be accountable for the contents of the submission and is/are authorized to present it. Confirm
Interested in serving as reviewer? deepanshkhurana@outlook.com

Author

Deepansh Khurana (Dimwit Labs)

Presentation materials

There are no materials yet.