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You probably don't need a single-page app

journal.plausible.io

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Re: You probably don't need a single-page app

#451

Post by qudat »

ccalvert wrote: post #39

I have modest skills as a developer. I was trying to convert an old static web site into something more interactive. Without really thinking it through, I started building a SPA. I got stuck on the SEO part. I found it innately complex, but the real trouble came from trying to bring together the disparate sections of the old static site while preserving and abetting SEO. One day I just ditched the SPA and rebuilt the…

As a FE engineer, SEO is the one area of SPAs that does feel like the wheel is being reinvented to accommodate its existence. It's unfortunate, there are solutions, but it's a little annoying to deal with.

Re: You probably don't need a single-page app

#452

Post by bo1024 »

paultopia wrote: post #262

Unpopular opinion: I love SPAs for simple stuff. Yes, they're a ton of work. But the feel of them is unparalleled. I have my personal home page written as a Vue SPA. It was a silly amount of work to get together, and not everything works perfectly. BUT: it moves like a rocket. I pre-render the simple front page, so initial load is nearly instantaneous (especially with cloudflare &c), and, by the time a visitor finish…

I want to be open-minded for you to have your fun. But at the same time, I want to let you know the problems with your approach from my perspective if you want me to interact with your site.

No offense, but I don't know you, so I'm not going to run untrusted code you serve my computer without some good reason. That means your website is completely broken for me. It is also likely broken from an accessibility standpoint for those with special needs or using tools to access your webpage. (edit: People's personal browser defaults such as size, font, scrolling, language translation, or any other plugins they use for their workflow may easily break.) It also means that search engines and robots will have a hard problem indexing the links on your page or understanding the layout of your site.

So while I could agree you've created this cool user experience for the most common case, it breaks the fundamental precepts underlying the web and I think this does have some negative consequences, especially if this became the default approach. That all said, you do your thing - I just hope this provides useful food for thought!

Re: You probably don't need a single-page app

#453

Post by edwardhusarcik »

virtualwhys wrote: post #432
a_wild_dandan wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I start with an SPA and adapt to the use-case. It either needs to be a SPA, or SPA -> SSR is easy (via Gatsby/Next.js). The other direction though, seeing projects grow from SSR -> interactivity/SPA is usually a horrifying display of highly-coupled code spaghettification.

> Yeah, I start with an SPA and adapt to the use-case. It either needs to be a SPA Aha, by mistake you corrected your grammar! HNers cargo cult everything, including grammatical mistakes like "an SPA" ( see literally everywhere in this thread). Just say it out loud, "I start with an SPA", does that roll off the tongue? No, neither does, "I'm going to buy an sailboat". However, "It either needs to be a SPA, ..." is to…

SPA isn't pronounced "spa" but S-P-A thus an SPA is more likely correct. See "an FBI agent" for an example.

Re: You probably don't need a single-page app

#454

Post by pojzon »

movedx wrote: post #385
oblib wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow... that is just insane. I've been working alone for so long I've not had to deal with anything like that for years, but I'll offer this... Doesn't matter, so don't let it matter to you. When I worked for others I'd offer my opinion and advice and when it was ignored I'd do it their way every step of the way because it really does not matter. You get paid the same either way. I'll add that because it didn't matter…

Yes. This... yes. All you can do as a professional, with experience, is offer up an argument and attempt to make it convincing enough to compel people to do things your way. If they reject your option, defend only once, and no more. After that, simply step back and work with whatever technologies are decided upon. You can also attempt to work the social networking game and play (internal) politics. If you do these su…

> work with whatever technologies are decided upon.

It may sound great when you learn something new, but when you worked with a technology and you know its deprecated crap - as a professional - you should also consider your own career..

Work on crap nobody uses for 5 years and you are so handicapped by that you "will" find a new job, but rather not a good one.

Not everyone can spend hours at home to keep up with the industry.

Re: You probably don't need a single-page app

#456

Post by dotancohen »

tspike wrote: post #366
ivanhoe wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You simply trade back-end frameworks complexities for the front-end framework complexities. With the right architecture there is no huge difference IMO, just of course you also need to upgrade your teams so that they can handle a lot more tasks on the front-end than with SSRs (and you'll probably need less back-end devs)

Front-end frameworks have a way of going in and out of fashion / support much faster than backend ones.

Yes, but front-end developers are much more fungible as well.

Re: You probably don't need a single-page app

#457

Post by ThePhysicist »

crooked-v wrote: post #326
BlackFly wrote: post #250

I used to feel that way, then I met a one javascript developer in particular who really made me see it differently. I won't get into those here, I just want to tone down the "probably don't need" into a "don't necessarily need". As a predominant back end developer, I do feel that the complaints from the article are due to inexperience or misunderstanding: 1. stateless requests: You don't have to cache any state by de…

> I am not sure what the Angular or React solutions are but with vue just use the vue router. For React there's a couple, but most of them boil down to the same basic idea that you've got switch statements that decide which components to render based on router state (rather than there being anything "special" about routing entry points), and then something like a component that just acts like an tag but triggers the…

I used react-router before but absolutely hated how it mixes presentational logic with URL matching. For new projects I just use a small routing helper that’s written using React context and that performs URL matching the old fashioned way (a list of pattern with parameters that are routed to specific components). Works really well on all modern browsers and is less than 200 lines of code. It even allows for reverse routing (use a view name and parameters to generate a URL) which to my knowledge isn’t implemented in react-router.

Re: You probably don't need a single-page app

#458

Post by caseymarquis »

whytaka wrote: post #379
caseymarquis wrote: post #34

For new development, I reach for SPA tools (like VueJS with Webpack) fairly quickly. The reasons for this are: 1. Reusable web components. 2. Clear separation of backend and frontend logic. 3. Using the latest version of javascript. I really like HTML/CSS/JS as tools for building GUIs, but I feel HTML/CSS specifically suffer from the inability to make components. I think there are definitely instances where there is…

> but I feel HTML/CSS specifically suffer from the inability to make components. Are you familiar with CustomElements? https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Web_Components/...

Unfortunately, they're not widely supported yet. :(

Re: You probably don't need a single-page app

#459

Post by WA »

BlackFly wrote: post #250

I used to feel that way, then I met a one javascript developer in particular who really made me see it differently. I won't get into those here, I just want to tone down the "probably don't need" into a "don't necessarily need". As a predominant back end developer, I do feel that the complaints from the article are due to inexperience or misunderstanding: 1. stateless requests: You don't have to cache any state by de…

Regarding 3: The Browser does a bit more than routing and no framework (as far as I know) handles these simple cases by default:

- Timeout error / no network connection

- Ability to stop requests

- Show that the browser is sending a request

Re: You probably don't need a single-page app

#460

Post by anonytrary »

rainonmoon wrote: post #415
anonytrary wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. The problems you talk about have little to do with SPAs in general, and have more to do with "rewriting things from A to B". If you had started out with SPAs first and wanted to un-SPA everything, you'd be making the same comments. The issues you mentioned aren't intrinsic to SPAs, they're intrinsic in redoing things.

You're right, but it's also intrinsic to the senselessly shifting paradigm/bandwagon-jumping around SPAs. It's not just that redoing things is a problem, but that the motivation behind the rehaul is poorly conceived.

I think that's how the cookie crumbles, unfortunately. Most companies want to be on the biggest bandwagon to ensure they have a steady supply of fresh, young employees. Few companies want to rely on niche software that only a few people know how to work with. As long as younger people keep jumping onto new trends, companies will continue to follow.
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