Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files • Hacker News Board

Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files

#101

Post by paranoidrobot » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 1:15 AM UTC

karatestomp wrote: post #95

WDCDev wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Use the right technology for what you're trying to build. Yep .. so if you want a rich responsive user experience, DON'T use any web technologies. GMail (AND Gsuite) is a perfect example of how a relatively simple concept like email can be turned into a slow, unresponsive piece of garbage.

I'm about 99% sure the store on the PS3 was webtech. That beast of a machine could barely run its own store. They lost a lot of money from me as a result of the store being super-slow, input laggy, and crashy (OOM I assume), and I can't be the only one. PS4 feels like they've taken webtech all over the OS interface. Its store's snappier than the 3 but the rest of the interface performs way worse. Usable, but far less…

All sorts of devices with some kind of UI are using a browser in some kind of kiosk/headless mode.

STBs, Smart TVs, IFE systems are or were web based.

Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files

#102

Post by somishere » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 1:16 AM UTC

> But the web is about presenting content first and foremost

Surely this just translates to user first ..? Devs moving from "it's about me" to "it's about you", perhaps with a bit of a shove from google, et al.

Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files

#103

Post by satyrnein » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 1:18 AM UTC

x3haloed wrote: post #23

> The Dark Age - Somewhere on this path to render pages on the fly (SSR) and render pages on the client (SPA) we forgot about the performance of our webpages. We were trying to build apps. But the web is about presenting content first and foremost! Pfff - That's completely wrong. SPAs are all about performance. If you want to built a highly-interactive site, it makes sense to do the computing where it's consumed -- i…

Gmail is literally a document browser. I think Google Maps might be a better example.

Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files

#104

Post by paulmd » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 1:21 AM UTC

robbrown451 wrote: post #94

wolco wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was never faster then squirrelmail. It had cool features search was fast. But loading up your mailbox never as fast as other solutions.

I was considering things like Hotmail and Yahoo mail to be competitors. Free, ad supported, web based email. Was Squirrelmail that? I don't know I've hardly heard of it.

Squirrelmail is a GNU licensed webmail client. If you get a domain and hosting and they provide webmail for your domain, it's likely through Squirrelmail or one of a handful of competitors

Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files

#105

Post by karatestomp » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 1:23 AM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #31

ehvatum wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus, why? You could write the back end in something that isn’t fucking garbage, at that point.

This is just empty negativity. That people use Javascript in places they aren't forced to use Javascript should make you wonder what the upsides are for them instead of assuming they cannot form any valid preferences of their own, unlike yourself. For example, Javascript is one of the few languages that actually delivers on "async everything" and has a very simple Promise abstraction (like Promise.all()), and that ma…

Async-by-default from the perspective of the developer is one of the chief sins of JS, in this writing-JS-since-the-90s developer's opinion. I've seen and written so damn much code to work around async-by-default. Now most of the code I read is comically full of (justified!) awaits, so at least we got the sugar to fix it without so much fuss, but we shouldn't have to in the first place.

Let async code surrender control, but don't continue executing the current logic unless the developer asks for that behavior. Await-like behavior by default. That would have been much saner, less bug-prone, more helpful, and easier to learn & reason about. It's the desired behavior at least 90% of the time, in my experience.

Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files

#106

Post by RandomGuyDTB » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 1:29 AM UTC

justanotherc wrote: post #84

_lffv wrote: post #74

Hell, I still write the HTML and push it to Github where Github Pages and Cloudflare put it up on the Web for me. I've never seen any reason to use Markup when I can just Mark my text Up in HTML pretty simply. If you write a site correctly (a site, not a webapp) it'll render in anything from the original Netscape to the Wii Browser (tested working with my site), Internet Explorer 8 (working), Links2 (working), and th…

I have no idea what your site is about. Its just random links with no explanation about what they are or for.

> (though admittedly I don't spend as much time on it as I should)

It's pretty much just a howto and link repository for myself and my friends right now. Still mostly a work in progress. Consider it as an example for look rather than for function.

Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files

#107

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 1:31 AM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #39

chmod775 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Gmail showed us that web 'apps' are useful. Gmail is terrible. It's slow and most people prefer the static html version.

> It's slow and most people prefer the static html version. The only people I've ever heard talk about the static html version are a few HNers. I'd wager 99% of people don't care, don't mind their email client's first load being slow (they just keep it open in a tab anyways), and don't even know about the static html version.

I would say that with the rise of mobile, most gmail users are using the Gmail app or their native Mail app.

Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files

#108

Post by zitterbewegung » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 1:31 AM UTC

WDCDev wrote: post #87

x3haloed wrote: post #23

> The Dark Age - Somewhere on this path to render pages on the fly (SSR) and render pages on the client (SPA) we forgot about the performance of our webpages. We were trying to build apps. But the web is about presenting content first and foremost! Pfff - That's completely wrong. SPAs are all about performance. If you want to built a highly-interactive site, it makes sense to do the computing where it's consumed -- i…

> Use the right technology for what you're trying to build. Yep .. so if you want a rich responsive user experience, DON'T use any web technologies. GMail (AND Gsuite) is a perfect example of how a relatively simple concept like email can be turned into a slow, unresponsive piece of garbage.

Previous versions of GMail had a good experience but was significantly faster than the current version of gmail. Loading basic HTML mode can get you a previous version of it.

Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files

#109

Post by RandomGuyDTB » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 1:32 AM UTC

somecallitblues wrote: post #76

_lffv wrote: post #74

Hell, I still write the HTML and push it to Github where Github Pages and Cloudflare put it up on the Web for me. I've never seen any reason to use Markup when I can just Mark my text Up in HTML pretty simply. If you write a site correctly (a site, not a webapp) it'll render in anything from the original Netscape to the Wii Browser (tested working with my site), Internet Explorer 8 (working), Links2 (working), and th…

I’m sorry to say this but your site may only be appealing to you. Even though it will render on Commodore 64.

The intent is for users to style it themselves.. or it was, until browsers stopped having that functionality.

Re: Websites have evolved back to static HTML/CSS/JS files

#110

Post by ksec » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 1:32 AM UTC

x3haloed wrote: post #23

> The Dark Age - Somewhere on this path to render pages on the fly (SSR) and render pages on the client (SPA) we forgot about the performance of our webpages. We were trying to build apps. But the web is about presenting content first and foremost! Pfff - That's completely wrong. SPAs are all about performance. If you want to built a highly-interactive site, it makes sense to do the computing where it's consumed -- i…

>Says who? I understand that the underlying structures of the web are all about transferring documents and other resources. But Gmail showed us that web 'apps' are useful.

I have always thought Gmail wasn't really an App, and shouldn't / doesn't need to be an App. There are lots of so called Apps are nothing more than some documents with some interactivity. But people start using Javascript for everything. I hope Hey.com will prove this soon.