How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps
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Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps
#2I dont think it has to be all or nothing. I think the best answer is to use both technologies as appropriate even in the same app.
I was writing something like htmx without intercooler with Angular with Django (which I fondly called Djangular) in 2013.
It just needed yet another framework type abstraction to reduce the boiler plate.
Send json with the html on initial page load, use the json api to load addition data, hard navigate between "sections" of the app but tabs and such were SPA pattern.
I think a middle ground combo of svelte and htmx is a killer idea (similar to all the "live view" stuff people are loving).
Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps
#3I dont think it has to be all or nothing. I think the best answer is to use both technologies as appropriate even in the same app. I was writing something like htmx without intercooler with Angular with Django (which I fondly called Djangular) in 2013. It just needed yet another framework type abstraction to reduce the boiler plate. Send json with the html on initial page load, use the json api to load addition data,…
Indeed that is what Mr. Harris calls a "transitional" app, and, with him, I can recommend that approach.
The difference between us on that matter would be that I would recommend leaning hypermedia, whereas, at the risk of putting words into his mouth, he would appear to lean SPA/RPC as the default approach.
Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps
#4Not withstanding that HTML and the DOM are garbage to work with in any language
Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps
#5> And, contra what Mr. Harris says, today the trend is not obviously in javascripts favor. Five years ago, we, as founding members of the javascript resistance, were despairing of any hope of stopping the Javascript juggernaut. But then something unexpected happened: Python took off and, at the same time, javascript flat lined:
Why yes... if you use Stack Overflow usage as your measurement.
The problem is that doesn't tell you anything about JavaScript or Python... except whom is using Stack Overflow.
As a JavaScript developer (primarily), I use Stack Overflow far less than I did in years past, not just because I need less help in general as a senior, but because SO is so littered with JS answers that are outdated, poor quality, and conflate JavaScript with jQuery, that it's simply not worth using 99% of the time because MDN provides excellent documentation.
It's been a while since I've used Python, so maybe things have changed, but I remember the documentation not being comparable. It's good documentation, but MDN is excellent.
I'm not saying that either one is better, but that to use Stack Overflow trends to prove a point seems very fallacious. By that point I couldn't finish the rest of the article.
Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps
#6Not withstanding that HTML and the DOM are garbage to work with in any language
The DOM is a tree model. Navigating a tree is highly imperative. Developers allergic to imperative code tend to require unnecessary abstractions to make sense of the technology. Everything that follows is a foot gun of dependency hell.
Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps
#7I'm sorry but what's the point here? Rich's talk was not even remotely aimed at HTMX yet this article is nothing but a shameless list of HTMX features.
Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps
#8I'm sorry but what's the point here? Rich's talk was not even remotely aimed at HTMX yet this article is nothing but a shameless list of HTMX features.
The point is that the hypermedia approach, which is what htmx (among other technologies, such as hotwire and unpoly) takes, can address many of the usability criticisms that Mr. Harris levels at MPAs, without abandoning the fundamental REST-ful web architecture.
Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps
#9> And, contra what Mr. Harris says, today the trend is not obviously in javascripts favor. Five years ago, we, as founding members of the javascript resistance, were despairing of any hope of stopping the Javascript juggernaut. But then something unexpected happened: Python took off and, at the same time, javascript flat lined: Why yes... if you use Stack Overflow usage as your measurement. The problem is that doesn'…
The good news is that there wasn't much left in the article save a silly meme. Although perhaps this is worth pondering:
> We are fond of talking about the HOWL stack: Hypermedia On Whatever you'd Like. The idea is that, by returning to a (more powerful) Hypermedia Architecture, you can use whatever backend language you'd like: python, lisp, haskell, go, java, c#, whatever. Even javascript, if you like. There's no accounting for taste, after all. Since you are using hypermedia & HTML for your server interactions, you don't feel that pressure to adopt javascript on the backend that a huge javascript front end produces. You can still use javascript, of course, (perhaps in the form of alpine) but you use it in the manner it was originally intended: as a light, front end scripting language for enhancing your application. Or, if you are brave, perhaps you can try hyperscript for these needs.
> This is a world we would prefer live in: many programming language options, each with their own strengths, technical cultures and thriving communities, all able to participate in the web development world through the magic of more powerful hypermedia, rather than a monolith of SPAs-talking-to-Node-in-JSON. Diversity, after all, is our strength.
Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps
#10I'm sorry but what's the point here? Rich's talk was not even remotely aimed at HTMX yet this article is nothing but a shameless list of HTMX features.
The point is that Rich suggested that SPAs are the only way to solve these problems, and that MPAs can’t. This is a rebuttal from HTMX suggesting that MPAs can in fact solve these problems.