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In Defense of the Modern Web

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Re: In Defense of the Modern Web

#31

Post by mattrick »

rich_harris wrote: post #14
grey-area wrote: post #3

This author seems to think the only competitor to react is other js frameworks, when in fact most of the web's largest sites work just fine with small amounts of what he calls 'artisanal js'. You probably don't need your js framework, your 10k npm dependencies, or your complex mix of server and client side rendering. Not every website needs an api and clients to consume it, and not everything needs to be an app. The…

> your 10k npm dependencies Believe me, you're preaching to the choir. Nor am I advocating for every website to have an API. But unfortunately we part ways here: > The web is a success The web is not a success. It's dying. Consumers vastly prefer native apps — one recent study ( https://www.mobiloud.com/blog/mobile-apps-vs-the-mobile-web/ ) tells us that 90% of mobile time is spent in apps vs 10% in browsers.

How much of this is a consequence of companies intentionally crippling their websites, though? I can name countless companies that either don't have a website beyond what is essentially a link to the app store or have removed a significant number of features from their website.

Re: In Defense of the Modern Web

#32

Post by amw-zero »

rich_harris wrote: post #14
grey-area wrote: post #3

This author seems to think the only competitor to react is other js frameworks, when in fact most of the web's largest sites work just fine with small amounts of what he calls 'artisanal js'. You probably don't need your js framework, your 10k npm dependencies, or your complex mix of server and client side rendering. Not every website needs an api and clients to consume it, and not everything needs to be an app. The…

> your 10k npm dependencies Believe me, you're preaching to the choir. Nor am I advocating for every website to have an API. But unfortunately we part ways here: > The web is a success The web is not a success. It's dying. Consumers vastly prefer native apps — one recent study ( https://www.mobiloud.com/blog/mobile-apps-vs-the-mobile-web/ ) tells us that 90% of mobile time is spent in apps vs 10% in browsers.

Well, I think this is really hyperbolic. I think it depends on the application, and the consumer. And the web is a tremendous success. You should take a step back and look at how your entire life is affected by the web. It seems really, really off the mark to say that the web is not a success.

You can criticize it, sure. But - you are using a computer 100% because of the web, not because of spreadsheet software.

Now, back to web vs. native. You just have people who prefer either. I exclusively use apps. I think the experience is better in every way, and I've never seen a web application deliver comparable experience to a native app. But, almost every native app is backed by a web server. And, some things I do want to remain web apps, like Wikipedia.

I think the web community overall looks at native apps like they are some weird, alien technology because they're completely blinded by what they build and what tools they use. Like always, if we understood why users enjoy native apps, we could learn a lot of things. I'd argue that we are learning that, which is why there are lots of SPAs. That doesn't mean that's the only way to build software, it just means that people do actually enjoy that experience.

Re: In Defense of the Modern Web

#33

Post by amw-zero »

tashoecraft wrote: post #30
rich_harris wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your 10k npm dependencies Believe me, you're preaching to the choir. Nor am I advocating for every website to have an API. But unfortunately we part ways here: > The web is a success The web is not a success. It's dying. Consumers vastly prefer native apps — one recent study ( https://www.mobiloud.com/blog/mobile-apps-vs-the-mobile-web/ ) tells us that 90% of mobile time is spent in apps vs 10% in browsers.

Apps only work for very specific use cases. The difficulty in getting people to download your app shows that. That study doesn’t seem to break down what apps are being used. I’m going to guess games, as they dominate the charts, or specific websites that have created mobile apps. Facebook, Twitter or maps, which are used for multiple hours straight when driving. If there is a site you use often enough it graduates to…

> The difficulty in getting people to download your app shows that

This one I'm always interested in. What is difficult about downloading an app?

Re: In Defense of the Modern Web

#35

Post by timw4mail »

speedgoose wrote: post #27
timw4mail wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing this, but I think it's too broad of a statement. There are definitely functionalities that are impractical to implement with server-side rendering and forms alone. Map widgets and drag-and-drop come to mind. The issue I have though, is that the overwelming majority of web functionality can be implemented as server-side rendering.

Even HN would have a poor usability with only server side rendering.

Sure, but it's much leaner because it only uses JavaScript when it is necessary.

Re: In Defense of the Modern Web

#36

Post by rich_harris »

zozbot234 wrote: post #23
rich_harris wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or when I click the 'reply' button to post this very comment, which does result in a jarring full-page refresh — and one that instantly robs me of the fuller context in which I'm replying.

But this gives you the option of opening the reply link in a background tab (via click-and-hold or middle-click, depending on your UI). Can't do that in a JavaScript SPA without re-hydrating tens of megabytes of JS for each tab you load.

> without re-hydrating tens of megabytes of JS for each tab you load

You'll be taken more seriously if you don't engage in meaningless hyberbole. You could recreate the open-the-reply-page-in-a-new-tab behaviour of HN (with the context-preserving JS enhancement for the non-middle-clickers) with a few kilobytes of JS if you're doing it right.

Re: In Defense of the Modern Web

#37

Post by ss3000 »

rich_harris wrote: post #14
grey-area wrote: post #3

This author seems to think the only competitor to react is other js frameworks, when in fact most of the web's largest sites work just fine with small amounts of what he calls 'artisanal js'. You probably don't need your js framework, your 10k npm dependencies, or your complex mix of server and client side rendering. Not every website needs an api and clients to consume it, and not everything needs to be an app. The…

> your 10k npm dependencies Believe me, you're preaching to the choir. Nor am I advocating for every website to have an API. But unfortunately we part ways here: > The web is a success The web is not a success. It's dying. Consumers vastly prefer native apps — one recent study ( https://www.mobiloud.com/blog/mobile-apps-vs-the-mobile-web/ ) tells us that 90% of mobile time is spent in apps vs 10% in browsers.

If they dived deeper into the usage patterns and broke down app usage by specific apps, I'd suspect a vast majority of that time is spent in a tiny handful of popular apps, since there are also countless studies pointing to the fact that consumers don't install more than a handful of native apps.

If you remove time spent in those popular apps and their respective websites from the stats, the data would likely paint a vastly different story (that might not be in the best interest for a site that relies on pushing "Launching mobile apps for your WordPress site" to highlight ofc).

Re: In Defense of the Modern Web

#38

Post by noad »

rich_harris wrote: post #14
grey-area wrote: post #3

This author seems to think the only competitor to react is other js frameworks, when in fact most of the web's largest sites work just fine with small amounts of what he calls 'artisanal js'. You probably don't need your js framework, your 10k npm dependencies, or your complex mix of server and client side rendering. Not every website needs an api and clients to consume it, and not everything needs to be an app. The…

> your 10k npm dependencies Believe me, you're preaching to the choir. Nor am I advocating for every website to have an API. But unfortunately we part ways here: > The web is a success The web is not a success. It's dying. Consumers vastly prefer native apps — one recent study ( https://www.mobiloud.com/blog/mobile-apps-vs-the-mobile-web/ ) tells us that 90% of mobile time is spent in apps vs 10% in browsers.

Yeah, we let the web become Cable TV. It's dying the same slow death as Cable TV while executives scratch their heads about why the perpetual growth stopped.

The advertising is so pervasive, so annoying, so invasive and so awful it just makes the medium unusable. The same trends are starting to creep into podcasting and video games and I just wish people would realize they are slowly destroying their own businesses with this garbage.

Re: In Defense of the Modern Web

#39

Post by ssivark »

coffeefirst wrote: post #15
fenwick67 wrote: post #4

Every time a web designer complains that a full-page refresh is "jarring", a bit of me dies. This is like saying a lightbulb turning on quickly is jarring. It's the expected, immediate behavior. If every lightbulb I used turned on with different durations and easing functions or flashed colors at me, or loaded a flashing placeholder while the lightbulb loaded, that would be jarring.

Yeah, I don't get that at all. Especially if you can make the next page really fast. I'm also kind of gawking at the screencast he uses as an example: https://twitter.com/ryanflorence/status/1186675229621248000 Ryan Florence makes a fine point that his tool is being used to build things that don't benefit from it, but this isn't necessarily a good interface. It's pretty but it's just got way too much going on at once…

It seems more oriented to browsing/scanning, and particularly nice for that IMHO. What would be a baseline for comparison?

Re: In Defense of the Modern Web

#40

Post by danShumway »

echelon wrote: post #9

> The fact that we can do server-side rendering and communicate with databases and what-have-you using a language native to the web is a wonderful development. The author isn't just a React apologist, but also seems to want javascript everywhere. So much of this debate - sever side rendering, etc. - has to do with the inefficiency of DOM. Mobile and desktop UI toolkits aren't DOM for a reason. They do application UI…

> truly native web apps

God forbid. I happen to like adblockers, inspecting app DOM, and applying custom styles and features with browser extensions. I can customize even poorly-built web apps like Youtube and Facebook with enough poking around and custom selectors. It's great.

Don't bring native UX sensibilities to the web, or we'll retaliate by pushing Electron even harder for cross-platform native development. And yes, that is a threat. ;)

Every time this conversation comes up, I make the same point: the DOM is not a layout tool, the DOM is a user interface. The DOM forces you to give your users a pure-text representation of your current state -- it forces you to think of your current state as an XML-like data object before it allows you to think in visual terms. That's the point: your user interface is XML, not pixels.

Imagine if every native GTK app forced you to come up with a universal text interface that worked in terminals before it would let you add any of the weird keyboard handlers and unresponsive layouts and HDPI-unfriendly menus on top of it. That is how the web do.

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