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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

#91

Post by rezonant »

beebeepka wrote: post #84
kanonieer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconded. There was a series of similar Twitter discussions when a popular JavaScript "influencer" published an article[0] on how they built their website. The amount of complexity that is self-inflicted in the said article was obviously enormous for proponents of MPAs. However the JS community mostly echoed that the complexity was absolutely within norm. The cultural chasm between JS developers and people who push f…

> The cultural chasm between JS developers and people who push for simplicity was huge Yet another cheap shot. Might as well say 'fu js devs'. How come every time we have a thread on this thing its devs and supporters always come across as arrogant, bitter folks with an axe to grind. I don't like your technology. I didn't like it several years ago when I was introduced to it, and I don't like it now. It's not a bad i…

Absolutely this- Saying that the complexity of modern web dev is needless without even addressing things like state management, URL routing, component encapsulation, stylesheet encapsulation, performance, compatibility, semantic markup, offline-first, server-side rendering (for SEO and first paint) are somehow not real problems that need to be addressed. If you don't do it in the frontend, guess what? All of that is happening in the backend, too.

People seem to act like those problems just "go away" when you don't do SPA but it doesnt.

Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps

#92

Post by jacobobryant »

lucasyvas wrote: post #56

Having written SPAs in multiple frameworks over the years, I am finally starting to favour the author's perspective. That said, the one criticism I can lob is toward the assumption that JavaScript / TypeScript will be the only path for SPAs, creating a full-stack monoculture. Web Assembly is on its way to negating this point long term. I don't think this affects the position on MPAs, but weakens that one particular a…

See also compile-to-js languages, clojurescript being the one I'm most familiar with personally. Works great with React too.

Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps

#93

Post by recursivedoubts »

tsuujin wrote: post #86
recursivedoubts wrote: post #21

hello, I am the author of this article it is a response to a talk that Mr. Harris gave at JamStack entitled "Have Single-Page Applications Ruined the Web?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=860d8usGC0o in the article I show how a hypermedia-oriented (rather than javascript-oriented) library like htmx can address many of the usability concerns that Mr. Harris raises with MPAs, without abandoning the fundamental REST-fu…

Can you help clarify the difference between htmx and turbolinks (now just “turbo”) which has shipped with rails for years?

turbolinks takes over anchor navigation and "automagically" makes it use ajax

htmx (and intercooler.js, its predecessor which is 8 years old) is a lower level extension to HTML, allowing for targeting specific regions for replacement, using different events for triggering requests, etc.

htmx is closer to hotwire.dev, which 37signals recently released, but again is lower level and a more straight-ahead extension of HTML

Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps

#95

Post by coding123 »

So if 5MB is considered large, why don't we just go back to instructing people to download all of Java or .NET to get the app needed to control their home (real), or generate a temp credit card number (real), designing a home (real).

I'm not saying that all sites need to migrate to SPAs but there is a HUGE market segment that has been replaced with a React SPA over custom apps that had to be downloaded. And now those same SPAs work in your phone and your computer.

HTML POST REDIRECT HTML is dead, get over it.

Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps

#96

Post by codazoda »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #40

This is absolutely the right approach for building web sites IMO. It's the best mix of whatever-server-you-want-to-use and minimal JS on the client. I built my own (proprietary for my employer) general-purpose AJAX etc framework that uses minimal javascript to produce flexible, interactive web sites with 1/100 the bulk of React. It even degrades gracefully for clients that don't run JS. But I'm tired of maintaining i…

htmx (no L) is pretty great. Maybe I’m old school, but I’ve used it in my last two projects and it’s a breath of fresh air. My projects were Go and PHP. htmx didn’t care, worked the same in both. I also added it late in one of them, so it has a traditional MPA feel and then I tacked on htmx instead of writing a bunch of js.

Anywayz, I’m loving htmx and I’m pretty sure it is making my development faster. I don’t know, yet, if it will degrade for larger applications.

Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps

#97

Post by fivea »

ravenstine wrote: post #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'…

> The problem is that doesn't tell you anything about JavaScript or Python... except whom is using Stack Overflow.

I'd also add that the author also failed to notice that all time series in that graph, with the exception of Python, either flatlined or are dropping. Thus that says more about SO and bad data analysis than real world trends in frontend development.

Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps

#98

Post by peanut_worm »

ng12 wrote: post #62

God, I am so tired of these arguments. We need to stop bike-shedding web technology. You will never, ever convince me to go back to server-side rendering for the type of work I do. Are there other domains where that would be the wrong choice? Absolutely. The web is a platform and we should not treat these tools as one-size-fits-all. Use the tools that fit your use case; there's no use in talking about the how without…

What kind of work do you do where client-side rendering is better?

Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps

#99

Post by xrd »

I don't understand how you could do complex logic using this way. Is it possible and easy to say have multiple form elements share validation logic? It definitely looks great in many ways but I'm unsure how I wouldn't need to use a more complex framework like Svelte eventually anyway.

Re: How a hypermedia approach can address usability concerns with multi-page apps

#100

Post by dreamcompiler »

codazoda wrote: post #96
dreamcompiler wrote: post #40

This is absolutely the right approach for building web sites IMO. It's the best mix of whatever-server-you-want-to-use and minimal JS on the client. I built my own (proprietary for my employer) general-purpose AJAX etc framework that uses minimal javascript to produce flexible, interactive web sites with 1/100 the bulk of React. It even degrades gracefully for clients that don't run JS. But I'm tired of maintaining i…

htmx (no L) is pretty great. Maybe I’m old school, but I’ve used it in my last two projects and it’s a breath of fresh air. My projects were Go and PHP. htmx didn’t care, worked the same in both. I also added it late in one of them, so it has a traditional MPA feel and then I tacked on htmx instead of writing a bunch of js. Anywayz, I’m loving htmx and I’m pretty sure it is making my development faster. I don’t know,…

Thanks for the correction. My brain seems to insist that "L" be the next letter I type after "HTM".
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