The Return of the 90s Web • Hacker News Board

Re: The Return of the 90s Web

#311

Post by whywhywhywhy » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

esperent wrote: post #232

iphone_elegance wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run into very few people who claim this.. oh you mean on Twitter? well there's the problem.

Twitter is where a large percentage of web devs hang out. If something is problematic, you can't dismiss it as "but that's just Twitter". If it's a common mode of discourse on Twitter, then it's legitimately a part of developer culture. In any case, discussions around front end frameworks and especially React are scarcely any better here. Although they are usually politer at least.

> Twitter is where a large percentage of web devs hang out

This isn't true, Twitter is a place where a large percentage of Twitter users who are interested in web development talk about it.

Twitter is not a lens on the entire internet, it is a lens on a bubble of a bubble.

Re: The Return of the 90s Web

#312

Post by skoodge » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:06 PM UTC

gspr wrote: post #292

kickscondor wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are still creating great stuff along these lines - you just won't find it through Google or Facebook or most of Reddit. Complex, interesting hypertext creations and web sites are still everywhere. But try typing "interesting hypertext" into Google or Facebook and see where it gets you. You can't search for something that's off the beaten track. This is where directories come back in. Check some of these out: *…

2020 has given us a lot of crazy stuff, so I guess I won't be too surprised if it also gives us the return of webrings :-) I'm calling it now, the hottest startups will be "disrupting search using artisinally crafted rings of websites"!

Honestly, I don't think that's as crazy as it sounds. AI/ML-driven feeds often promise more than they actually deliver and by now more and more people are starting to realize that AI/ML is not the holy grail it was made out to be, at least in situation where you cannot throw massive resources at the problem.

Maybe not exactly in the form of webrings, but who knows, why wouldn't it be time for the pendulum to swing from the whole AI hype back in the other direction? There is a lot to be said for conscious curation on your terms and your devices vs algorithmic decisions made in the cloud for you.

Re: The Return of the 90s Web

#313

Post by empthought » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

Tade0 wrote: post #248

purerandomness wrote: post #5

I recently watched the "Helvetica" documentary that was posted here a few days ago [0], where they briefly mention "Grunge Typography" [1], a seemingly dead-end branch of typography that, for some strange reason, became pretty popular for a short period of time. After some years however, consensus amongst designers formed that what they've created was a pile of illegible garbage, and realized that there was no other…

To me SPAs were useful for one thing: to establish that JSON is the only blessed format for FE-BE communication. Back before the age of SPAs we had those "dynamic" apps which updated parts of the DOM by firing requests to the backend, getting a piece of rendered HTML and just throwing it there. It was an absolute nightmare to maintain and I'm happy we're past that. As for server rendering, I've been getting good resu…

> Back before the age of SPAs we had those "dynamic" apps which updated parts of the DOM by firing requests to the backend, getting a piece of rendered HTML and just throwing it there.

> It was an absolute nightmare to maintain and I'm happy we're past that.

Yeah, this model was adopted by noted failure GitHub and look where it got them.

Re: The Return of the 90s Web

#314

Post by bricej13 » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

rudolph9 wrote: post #99

One idea I’ve been thinking about building is sort of a hybrid SSR where you make use of server sent events to continually render more on the page based on the users interaction (most obvious would be scroller). Of course I have yet to investigate how modern browsers render a never ending index.html, how I wouldnsend the client events and correspond them to the existing open original request, how this would scale to…

That's sorta the idea behind server-rendered Blazor. Components are rendered on the server and passed over to the client via websockets.

Unsurprisingly, input lag and scalability can be major obstacles, but I expect it to make large headwinds in enterprise apps.

Re: The Return of the 90s Web

#315

Post by codr7 » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

I've been playing around with this for several years now; building more or less elaborate frameworks for server side rendering and dividing the interface into separate pages.

I blame Seaside [0] for corrupting me. Never used it to build anything, but once the idea of building the user interface on the server was in my head there was no way back.

Though I have to admit I still find JSON really convenient for submissions compared to using fields for everything as it allows massaging the data on the way.

Besides that I've found the approach to be a total success. Pages load instantly, bookmarks and back buttons work as expected and most of the application stays on the server.

[0] http://www.seaside.st/

Re: The Return of the 90s Web

#316

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

rudolph9 wrote: post #102

JohnBooty wrote: post #15

I can't wait for server-side rendering to take its place in the sun again. There are many use cases for which a client-side framework like React is eesential. But I feel the vast majority of use cases on the web would be better off with server-side rendering. And... There are issues of ethics here. You are kidding yourself to an extent when you say that you are building a "client-side web app." It is essentially an a…

https://nextjs.org/ is a react wrapper framework that has some nice SSR features. It makes a ubiquitous dev experience where the majority of the app can be rendered server or client side. Last time I worked with it about a year ago it was only the first page load that was rendered server side though but the first one the one that arguably affects the user experience the most.

[deleted]

Re: The Return of the 90s Web

#317

Post by Tade0 » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

empthought wrote: post #313

Tade0 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me SPAs were useful for one thing: to establish that JSON is the only blessed format for FE-BE communication. Back before the age of SPAs we had those "dynamic" apps which updated parts of the DOM by firing requests to the backend, getting a piece of rendered HTML and just throwing it there. It was an absolute nightmare to maintain and I'm happy we're past that. As for server rendering, I've been getting good resu…

> Back before the age of SPAs we had those "dynamic" apps which updated parts of the DOM by firing requests to the backend, getting a piece of rendered HTML and just throwing it there. > It was an absolute nightmare to maintain and I'm happy we're past that. Yeah, this model was adopted by noted failure GitHub and look where it got them.

Many successful businesses are a nightmare to maintain and the fact that they are successful doesn't make them less like that - if anything it makes them more like that.

Hell, I used to work for one such business, namely CKEditor.

Re: The Return of the 90s Web

#318

Post by DrFell » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

rudolph9 wrote: post #102

JohnBooty wrote: post #15

I can't wait for server-side rendering to take its place in the sun again. There are many use cases for which a client-side framework like React is eesential. But I feel the vast majority of use cases on the web would be better off with server-side rendering. And... There are issues of ethics here. You are kidding yourself to an extent when you say that you are building a "client-side web app." It is essentially an a…

https://nextjs.org/ is a react wrapper framework that has some nice SSR features. It makes a ubiquitous dev experience where the majority of the app can be rendered server or client side. Last time I worked with it about a year ago it was only the first page load that was rendered server side though but the first one the one that arguably affects the user experience the most.

Despite the literal phrasing, server-side rendering, as in SSRing a SPA, is not even close to what was happening in the 90's. That was much simpler, pure, and fun.

Re: The Return of the 90s Web

#319

Post by anderspitman » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

bartread wrote: post #282

hedora wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably already have m4 on your development machine: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_(computer_language)

OK, I'd never heard of this before and now I'm questioning why we have all these JS templating frameworks like Mustache, Pug[1], and the rest. [1] I actually use this one and it's just fine - great, in fact - but seeing M4 does make me feel like a lot of people may have spent a lot of time reinventing a wheel.

I've tried to get into M4 in the past but was always put off by the syntax. Mustache has been my go-to since it's simple and has lots of implementations in different languages. Are there any good reasons to use M4 over Mustache?

Re: The Return of the 90s Web

#320

Post by jasondclinton » Fri, Jun 19, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #141

Schopenhauer's 19th century essay "On Authorship" has been a personal fave since discovering it last year: Writing for money and reservation of copyright are, at bottom, the ruin of literature. No one writes anything that is worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject. What an inestimable boon it would be, if in every branch of literature there were only a few books, but those excellent! This…

Yes, the joke is that unemployment benefits are the real Endowment for the Arts. One wonders if we would have a healthier society if those who are capable of creating great art could do so by being freed up from financial constraints.