This inspired me to look up the Elm docs, and came across this gem:

  view model =
    div []
      [ button [ onClick Decrement ] [ text "-" ]
      , div [] [ text (String.fromInt model) ]
      , button [ onClick Increment ] [ text "+" ]
      ]

This was also the thing that attracted me to Elm years ago. But at that time Elm doesn't have a CSS module yet. Now with Elm-UI, it is like my dream HTML/CSS replacement.

However that was all for static UI though. Writing Elm app is still a pain if you are not a Javascript expert. Elm's implementation of the web API is minimal and the progress is extremely slow. In addition, most function that's in libraries in Javascript's ecosystem can not be directly used as you have to write Ports, which requires a lot of Javascript experience.

Elm-UI is in a questionable state. Their github page originally said it was no longer maintained. Now they acknowledge that they are struggling to update to the latest version of Elm which caused many syntax breakages.