JavaScript hydration is a workaround, not a solution

#1

Post by fagnerbrack » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

JavaScript hydration is a workaround, not a solution
thenewstack.io

Re: JavaScript hydration is a workaround, not a solution

#2

Post by aliqot » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 2:45 PM UTC

Maybe I'm just getting old, but Javascript jumped the shark at some point. Hydration, lazy loading, managing flashes of unstyled content, a lot of this is built to address things that wouldn't be problems if we treated the browser as the dojo that it is and not be so dang wasteful.

im sure someone with shinier boots than mine will pop in and tell me how im wrong, and perhaps youre right, but the web was a much better place without all the toolchain and shenanigans. We must return to fundamentals.

Re: JavaScript hydration is a workaround, not a solution

#3

Post by maest » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 2:47 PM UTC

Clicking on the builder.io link redirects me to:

https://uc.appengine.google.com/_ah/conflogin?state=%7E...

which says:

    An application is requesting permission to access your Google Account.
    Please select an account that you would like to use.

EDIT: you can see it if you go to http://builder.io (https works fine)

Re: JavaScript hydration is a workaround, not a solution

#4

Post by guipsp » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 2:52 PM UTC

aliqot wrote: post #2

Maybe I'm just getting old, but Javascript jumped the shark at some point. Hydration, lazy loading, managing flashes of unstyled content, a lot of this is built to address things that wouldn't be problems if we treated the browser as the dojo that it is and not be so dang wasteful. im sure someone with shinier boots than mine will pop in and tell me how im wrong, and perhaps youre right, but the web was a much better…

I thoroughly agree, society was much better before computers came along.

Re: JavaScript hydration is a workaround, not a solution

#5

Post by scrollaway » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 2:53 PM UTC

aliqot wrote: post #2

Maybe I'm just getting old, but Javascript jumped the shark at some point. Hydration, lazy loading, managing flashes of unstyled content, a lot of this is built to address things that wouldn't be problems if we treated the browser as the dojo that it is and not be so dang wasteful. im sure someone with shinier boots than mine will pop in and tell me how im wrong, and perhaps youre right, but the web was a much better…

> Hydration, lazy loading, managing flashes of unstyled content, a lot of this is built to address things that wouldn't be problems if we treated the browser as the dojo that it is and not be so dang wasteful.

What's your point here, exactly? That if random wordpress blogs and recipe websites were less wasteful, the problems these solutions are addressing would not exist?

I can make you an extremely non-wasteful webapp which still needs to display a hundred images on a page (because reasons), so lazy-loading the images is still important.

I can find you a very well-optimized website that is only a few kilobytes, but still loads slow as shit because their network is bad and I'm on a terrible 3G link. FOUC would still be an issue.

Re: JavaScript hydration is a workaround, not a solution

#6

Post by intothemild » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 2:54 PM UTC

aliqot wrote: post #2

Maybe I'm just getting old, but Javascript jumped the shark at some point. Hydration, lazy loading, managing flashes of unstyled content, a lot of this is built to address things that wouldn't be problems if we treated the browser as the dojo that it is and not be so dang wasteful. im sure someone with shinier boots than mine will pop in and tell me how im wrong, and perhaps youre right, but the web was a much better…

Developers, just coding their websites, not a toolchain in sight.

Re: JavaScript hydration is a workaround, not a solution

#7

Post by dmix » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 2:54 PM UTC

The recent evolution of JS frameworks has been really nice. Performance is basically getting identical to desktop.

The three recent developments I've noticed:

- "Islands" in Deno https://fresh.deno.dev/ and https://remix.run/ where only small isolated parts get hydrated, instead of the whole page

- Using http://linear.app style data-flows ala Replicache (https://replicache.dev/) where JSON data is preloaded for all sub-links and stored offline-first like a desktop app, so clicking on anything loads immediately w/o waiting for network requests to finish

- Now with 'resumability' where the server-side framework was built with client hydration in mind and delivers the bare minimum event/DOM data necessary to make the page interactive (instead of just being a glorified HTML cache load before the usual JS activates)

For people not following JS these might all seem like constantly reinventing past lessons, but there is a logical evolution happening here towards desktop-style performance and interactivity on the web. Or pure server-side performance but with full JS interactivity.

The next set of frameworks is going to be as big of an evolution the way Angular/Backbone->React/Vue was ~8yrs ago. But it's going to require new backend server frameworks, not just a new client framework. There's probably a big opportunity for the project that can combine this stuff properly.

Re: JavaScript hydration is a workaround, not a solution

#8

Post by xjose97x » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 2:55 PM UTC

guipsp wrote: post #4

aliqot wrote: post #2

Maybe I'm just getting old, but Javascript jumped the shark at some point. Hydration, lazy loading, managing flashes of unstyled content, a lot of this is built to address things that wouldn't be problems if we treated the browser as the dojo that it is and not be so dang wasteful. im sure someone with shinier boots than mine will pop in and tell me how im wrong, and perhaps youre right, but the web was a much better…

I thoroughly agree, society was much better before computers came along.

Can't tell if this is is a joke or not lol

Re: JavaScript hydration is a workaround, not a solution

#9

Post by mikepurvis » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 2:57 PM UTC

guipsp wrote: post #4

aliqot wrote: post #2

Maybe I'm just getting old, but Javascript jumped the shark at some point. Hydration, lazy loading, managing flashes of unstyled content, a lot of this is built to address things that wouldn't be problems if we treated the browser as the dojo that it is and not be so dang wasteful. im sure someone with shinier boots than mine will pop in and tell me how im wrong, and perhaps youre right, but the web was a much better…

I thoroughly agree, society was much better before computers came along.

Whoa whoa whoa, let's not get carried away. The peak of technology obviously occurred in $YEAR_AUTHOR_GRADUATED_UNIVERSITY and it's all been downhill from there.

Re: JavaScript hydration is a workaround, not a solution

#10

Post by qsort » Thu, Sep 01, 2022, 2:57 PM UTC

aliqot wrote: post #2

Maybe I'm just getting old, but Javascript jumped the shark at some point. Hydration, lazy loading, managing flashes of unstyled content, a lot of this is built to address things that wouldn't be problems if we treated the browser as the dojo that it is and not be so dang wasteful. im sure someone with shinier boots than mine will pop in and tell me how im wrong, and perhaps youre right, but the web was a much better…

You're not wrong, the websites I enjoy the most are basically all static.

I think the problem is that the "web fundamentals" aren't that good to begin with. A web application is very often the least bad solution, but you're not going to have "rich" web applications without tons of JS. Show the average user HN and they won't like the interface.