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Intercooler.js – Making AJAX as easy as anchor tags

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Re: Intercooler.js – Making AJAX as easy as anchor tags

#31

Post by andybak »

Kequc wrote: post #4

I'm surprised this needs jQuery. What this seems to be is a simple script that fetches a resource and places it into an element. I really feel opposed to adding more dependencies where they aren't required. That could be written without jQuery or this library fairly easily.

> I really feel opposed to adding more dependencies

Isn't it a pragmatic technical decision rather than - what you almost make sound - rather an emotional one? There are times adding a dependency is exactly the right thing to do and times when it isn't. It's surely something that is project and situation dependent.

Re: Intercooler.js – Making AJAX as easy as anchor tags

#32

Post by nzjrs »

I said this on the other discussion, but I'm compelled to post it again.

Intercooler.js is so logically designed it basically requires no documentation - I read the introduction and a handful of examples and thought, "shit of course it works this way" and could basically derive how every other feature mapped to its implementation in that moment.

Congratulations!

Re: Intercooler.js – Making AJAX as easy as anchor tags

#33

Post by carsongross »

nzjrs wrote: post #32

I said this on the other discussion, but I'm compelled to post it again. Intercooler.js is so logically designed it basically requires no documentation - I read the introduction and a handful of examples and thought, "shit of course it works this way" and could basically derive how every other feature mapped to its implementation in that moment. Congratulations!

Thank you!

I built it for my startup and wasn't sure it was going to work out, but my co-founders let me give it a try and I've been really happy with how it turned out. We have been able to build a pretty modern web app with very little javascript.

Re: Intercooler.js – Making AJAX as easy as anchor tags

#35

Post by bobwaycott »

I have, over the last few years, taken a similar approach and built my own reusable, yet rudimentary, version of this. Happy to see such a well-thought out and elegant approach that matches my own preferences. Going to be using Intercooler in the future (and might even switch my old stuff to it). Nice project.

Re: Intercooler.js – Making AJAX as easy as anchor tags

#36

Post by carsongross »

Touche wrote: post #7

It would be cool if this could some how use DOM diffing (I assume it just uses innerHTML now), so you'd get minimal dom updates with the advantages of doing everything server-side that this already provides you. Throw in some smart service worker caching and you get pretty close to the responsiveness of a fully client-side approach.

I'd like to implement that.

Or, better, I'd like you to implement that. :)

Re: Intercooler.js – Making AJAX as easy as anchor tags

#38

Post by DSteinmann »

This has been reposted so many times by the author and by others that I can't help but finally ask.

What's the point? This would lead to your API being comprised of blocks of HTML which are probably only useable for one product. Why not just use REST + JSON? It would take no more than five minutes to set up client-side rendering, and you could even make it attribute-based like this with barely any more effort. Is it really not worth spending the extra five minutes it takes to set things up in a way that is reusable and standard? All I see is piles of legacy code being generated where it hurts most - in the backend.

This took me 10 minutes to cook up. It would have taken about three if I hadn't forgotten the jQuery and Handlebars APIs. This allows you to POST to a JSON API using two attributes. Untested of course, but you get the idea:

    Example: 

    $('[ic-post-to]').click((button) => {
        fetch($(button).attr('ic-post-to')), { method: 'post' })
        .then((result) => {
            let templateText = $($(button).attr("ic-template")).html();
            let template = Handlebars.compile(templateText);
            let resultHtml = template(result);
            $(button).replaceWith(resultHtml);
        });
    });

Re: Intercooler.js – Making AJAX as easy as anchor tags

#39

Post by scwoodal »

DSteinmann wrote: post #38

This has been reposted so many times by the author and by others that I can't help but finally ask. What's the point? This would lead to your API being comprised of blocks of HTML which are probably only useable for one product. Why not just use REST + JSON? It would take no more than five minutes to set up client-side rendering, and you could even make it attribute-based like this with barely any more effort. Is it…

Not everything needs a JSON API so any client can talk to it. You're also underestimating setting up client side rendering as my experience tells me otherwise.

Most of the time a django/rails rendered backend is desirable and easier to maintain over the long run.

Re: Intercooler.js – Making AJAX as easy as anchor tags

#40

Post by carsongross »

DSteinmann wrote: post #38

This has been reposted so many times by the author and by others that I can't help but finally ask. What's the point? This would lead to your API being comprised of blocks of HTML which are probably only useable for one product. Why not just use REST + JSON? It would take no more than five minutes to set up client-side rendering, and you could even make it attribute-based like this with barely any more effort. Is it…

The short answer is: because the web architecture was and is fundamentally different than the 80's style client/server model you are advocating, and it has specific advantages that are being lost in the transition back to that model (security, scaleability, simplicity, etc).

The longer answer can be found in these posts:

http://intercoolerjs.org/2016/01/18/rescuing-rest.html

http://intercoolerjs.org/2016/05/08/hatoeas-is-for-humans.ht...

http://intercoolerjs.org/2016/02/17/api-churn-vs-security.ht...

Of course, you will need to go into all of this with an open mind, or you will not find any of it convincing.

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